


City of Chains

by foxghost



Series: City of Chains [1]
Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anal Sex, Blindfolds, Chains, Dubious Consent, Electricity, Fisting, Food Kink, Forced Orgasm, Frottage, Kink Meme, Leather Kink, Light BDSM, M/M, Masturbation, Mirrors, Oral Sex, Porn With Plot, Restraints, Rimming, Sex Toys, Size Kink, Slash, Spanking, Wax
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-16
Updated: 2012-03-10
Packaged: 2017-10-31 07:30:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 36,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/341541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxghost/pseuds/foxghost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <a href="http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/8469.html?thread=32348693#t32348693">Prompt:</a>
</p><p> </p><p> "How about an AU where Hawke decided, nah, The Deep Roads just weren't for him (I mean, they're all, you know, dark and stuff, and I hear there are these, like, huge spiders!), and that the seedy underbelly of Kirkwall's crime scene is where the real money's at.</p><p>At any rate, Hawke has a drop set up one night wherever, and who should come traipsing along, ruining the exchange, but a certain apostate mage.</p><p>How does Hawke make his displeasure known?"</p><p>Why, anon, Hawke threw Anders in chains, of course. Chains, leather, and magebane laced with aphrodisacs.</p><p>Think Goodfellas, The Godfather, and Mafia (the game) meets Dragon Age, but no real crossover. A lot of it very much tongue-in-cheek.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Routine Mission

**Author's Note:**

> This began as a fill for an MotA related prompt over that convo they had about the chains. I started filling it, and then it deviated and got WAY out of hand, so some kind anon made a prompt for me on the kmeme so I'd have a place to put it.
> 
> The explicit stuff starts halfway through chapter 7, and after that you won't see plot for a while, and I know, I said tongue-in-cheek, but the sex got really serious in later chapters.

It was supposed to be a routine run through the sewers; two mages, both Dalish, phylacteries destroyed that day by their man on the inside.  
  
Anders came to himself with one teenage mage hanging onto his arm, the other having ran off after the fighting began. He should have known there was nothing routine to be had in Kirkwall. At a first count, there were six men in red armour dead at his feet. A crate of lyrium, unbroken, sat not three feet away, faintly glowing in the muck.  
  
"Where's your friend?" Anders tried, in vain, to brush off the gore that clung to him. Vengeance did not believe in distance or magic, apparently, since his only attack was grab and pull.  
  
First count, six, since it was hard to count body parts in the dark.  
  
"What the fuck was that?" The boy's voice was steady, relatively, considering what he just witnessed.  
  
"We're both alive, aren't we?" Anders attempted a smile which probably came off as creepy more than anything, what with the blood hanging onto the side of his face. "Spirit magic. Not sanctioned by the chantry. Which way did your friend go?"  
  
The boy mage - half-Elvhen by the looks of him - gave Anders a once over, probably checking for pustules and extra limbs. Satisfied that he wasn't an abomination at the moment, the boy pointed, to the relief of Anders, in the opposite direction of the gallows.  
  
"She ran that way. I think."  
  
Anders eyed the crate of lyrium. Some templars were probably going to get their hands on it if it was left there. He tested its weight; it was lighter than he thought. Not the distilled, liquid form then, but the raw refined dust. Worth its weight in gold. Opening the crate, he found the lyrium safely stored in individual pouches, each one of them sealed with a wax stamp.   
  
Leaving them here would have been a waste, so Anders quickly threw them into his pack. He motioned the boy to move ahead before setting the crate and the bodies - parts of bodies - around them on fire.  
  
It was much later on, after he delivered his charges to the Dalish up at Sundermount, when he was back in his clinic, that he remembered the cache of lyrium in his pack. In the dim light of his bedroom, Anders removed a brick from the wall behind his bed, revealing a hole seemingly stuffed with hay. He took that out as well, and laid the small pouches of lyrium in the back of the hole, beside a grimoire in Arcanum and a stack of letters from Karl.  
  
The candlelight glinted off the gold in the wax seal of the last bundle. There, in the middle of the red wax, was a relief of something ... a bird? Gold dust in sealing wax. _Whoever this smuggler was, he was classy_ , thought Anders, as he replaced the hay and the brick, and cast a glamour. Just a mere shifting of the light, so that the loose brick blended right in with the rest. Perhaps with this little extra, he could scrounge up enough for a bribe to get Karl out.  
  
Tomorrow, he would have to find a buyer. For now, he needed to rest, and the guilt Justice felt at having slaughtered some not-so-innocent bystanders might just allow him some interrupted sleep.


	2. The Cake's Delayed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our anti-hero makes his appearance, and is greeted by bad news first thing in the morning.

If there was one thing Hawke was sure of right now, at this very moment, it was that neither Fenris nor Isabella made good secretaries. There was Bodahn, of course, but he didn't trust the pedantic dwarf with some of his more sensitive correspondences. Fenris couldn't read, and Isabella couldn't write anything without euphemisms or drawing dirty things in the margins, so Hawke was stuck in his office with his mountain of paperwork wondering why he thought buying out the Red Irons and partnering up with Athenril were good ideas.   
  
They were ideas that made him rich, afforded him the luxuries of a mansion in high town and made his name somewhat influential - mentioned in the same breath as 'dog-lord' and 'Ferelden upstart' - and his mother was happy enough to be a noble again, but at the end of the day, he was stressed and pissed off at everyone and everything. It seemed hardly worth it.   
  
Penning his fifth letter of condolence since this morning, it certainly looked as though it wasn't worth it for some who worked for him. Six men lost, along with well over a hundred sovereigns worth of refined lyrium. There was, of course, the possibility that the men ran off with the dust, but that was highly unlikely. People who betrayed his trust died painful, slow deaths - at least according to Varric's stories.   
  
Hawke rubbed at his temples, fruitlessly trying to relieve a budding migraine. He was going gray before his time, and he knew it. As he contemplated leaving Bodahn to answer the rest of his letters, a soft knock at the door called for his attention.   
  
"Come in," Hawke said without looking up. Only one person knocked in this house, and he trusted Fenris completely.   
  
"Hawke." They settled on 'Hawke' after about a month into Fenris' employment; 'boss' was much too deferential, even though Isabella had no problem using it, and 'Messere' - which he heard from Bodahn all the bloody time - was just wrong, coming from Fenris.   
  
"Just give me the bad news."   
  
"They're all dead," Fenris shrugged, glancing to the side a bit at the word 'dead' then added, almost nonchalantly, "in pieces, actually."   
  
"The lyrium?"   
  
"Gone."   
  
"Right. Any good news?" Hawke reached out a hand and pulled the curtain cord out of its knot. The heavy velvet drapes came open, shifting the shadows. Fenris just stood there, unmoving. "Okay. Any ideas who might have done it?"   
  
"Something that ripped limbs from their sockets then set them on fire. An abomination, perhaps?"   
  
"There's a lyrium-stealing abomination with superhuman strength running amok in the smuggling tunnels I use. Great." Hawke dropped his hand to a lower drawer handle and withdrew a cigarette box. He lit one, drew deep, and gestured the box at Fenris.   
  
"That stuff will kill you, Hawke."   
  
"Something that might kill me in thirty years is the least of my worries." Hawke stood in one smooth motion, using one large hand on the desk to shift his weight. The cigarette helped with the headache, but the day wasn't getting any better. If anything, it managed to get worse, somehow. "Well, we've got work to do. I'm heading to the Hanged Man to see if anyone tried to move that lyrium, and you can visit my little brother for me."   
  
"What should I tell him?"   
  
"Tell him ... tell him that the cake's delayed, and if anything happens to Beth on his watch I'll flay him. Personally." Hawke walked out of the room, buckling his armour on as he clattered down the stairs. Fenris' eyebrow climbed up as he heard the sound of armoured boots coming toward him instead of away, and Hawke's head whipped over the side of the door, barely missing the top of the frame, "wait for me by the Qunari compound when you get back from the Gallows."


	3. Stop Passing Floor Cleaner Off as Whiskey, Please.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our main characters meet, and it is, I believe, fear and lust at first sight.

Hawke took his great sword from Bodahn and stepped over the threshold into high town proper. The guards at the door nodded at him as he went by, and he strapped on his helm last. as claustrophobia-inducing as the damned thing was, it offered him the anonymity of being just another hired sword.  
  
Two years in Kirkwall. If it wasn't for mother he would have commandeered the ship that took them from Ferelden and turn them right around the moment he saw those slave statues in the harbour. The City of Chains. Dreadful, dismal place. Now that he was safely ensconced among the elite, it didn't feel any less stifling. Building a life here was like building a sand castle by the shore; any moment a wave could bring the entire thing down.  
  
It felt like high tide today, and he was frantically bailing the water around his world. The injustice of it all was that it didn't even feel all that like  his . It was his mother's world, and now he had to live with it simply because she wanted to stay in this crazy town. There were his friends, of course, but they belonged here even less than he did.  
  
Some days it was as if everyone, himself included, was just waiting for the shit to hit the fan. If he hadn't hired Fenris on, the elf would be sitting in that dilapidated mansion drinking to a stupor everyday, and on the day that his former master finally caught up to him, he'd be drunk, alone, and defenceless.  
  
The Hanged Man greeted him with its usual smell of stale piss and vomit, and Isabela waved to him from across the bar. Another friend who was waiting for the other shoe to drop.  
  
"Get back to work," he scowled at her, knowing full well that it was her day off.  
  
"I'm off today. Wait. Am I off today?" The pirate stared into her whiskey. Hawke shook his head and chuckled. Whiskey. It was eleven in the morning. "Asshole. You're trying to confuse me."  
  
"Why don't you swing by the alienage and make sure Merrill is eating, since you have nothing better to do?"  
  
Isabela fired off a string of invectives that could make a sailor (pirate) blush, but Hawke was already taking the stairs two at a time up into the back rooms. Varric's door was closed, so he took a spot across from the door and settled down against the wall with a cigarette.  
  
It gave him all too much time to think. Carver might be able to buy him a day or two, but he really needed that dust. Some of it were going to be converted into gold, sure, but a third of that batch were bribes, encouraging the templars to look the other way and allowed Beth the weekly visit to their family home with only Carver as her escort.  
  
His cigarette was half down when Varric's door opened. Hawke didn't look up; Varric's 'friends' generally preferred not be recognized, if possible, and it was common courtesy to just wait and stare at the floor while the last visitor walked away. He had  some manners.  
  
When it became obvious that whomever standing in Varric's doorway was staring at him, Hawke took one last drag and looked up as he blew out the smoke, slowly and derisively.  
  
So it was that he created a tableaux of the scene in front of him, framed by a smoke ring. Red gold hair, liquid amber eyes that his haggard appearance couldn't mask, lips moist and slightly open in a natural pout. Hawke felt his mouth quirk up in a half-smile as he pushed away from the wall. Kirkwallers weren't generally this good looking. Low-town thugs, even less so.  
  
The sound of his boots scraping across the rough wood floored seemed to jolt the stranger out of his reverie, and the blond man muttered an 'excuse me' and practically ran down the hall. Hawke ran a hand through his hair, slicked back and salt and pepper, black when he first arrived in this bloody insanity of a town, and wondered if he was losing his touch.  
  
"Hawke," Varric was seated in his giant dwarf chair as always, and he greeted Hawke before he even stepped through the door. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"  
  
"My boots gave me away again, did they?" Hawke took one of the larger chairs and sat down, and even so, he dwarfed it with his knees going halfway up his chest. "You need bigger chairs."  
  
"You'd make a rotten thief."  
  
"Good thing I'm a legitimate business man, then." Hawke reached into his pack for another smoke, but thought better of it. This was proving to be a busy day and if the Maker was his usual self, more shit would be thrown his way before the day was out. He motioned to the carafe on the sideboard instead, and Varric pushed a small cup that was already on the table toward him. "What's this?"  
  
"Whiskey."  
  
"What is with you and Isabela? Whiskey before noon?"  
  
"Word on the street is that you sound like you need it."  
  
That, he certainly did. Hawke took a whiff of the cloudy liquid in the cup, and quirked an eyebrow. It smelled corrosive. "There was a bit of an accident with one of my shipments last night."  
  
"Oh?" Varric's expression didn't change at all.  
  
"Six men dead, the shipment's gone, and Fenris is convinced that a rampaging abomination did it."  
  
"Well, that's no good." Varric deadpanned.  
  
"Anyone try to sell you some dust today?"  
  
"What's it to you?"  
  
"I'm out for blood, personally," Hawke watched the subtle color change in Varric's face, and laced his hands, resting his chin on top of them. "Unless it was a friend of yours. Your friends are my friends, you know that."  
  
"You'll want the lyrium back."  
  
"That goes without saying."  
  
"And you're just going to let him walk away scot free?"  
  
"Oh, Varric, you wound me." Hawke smiled. Like a blighted Hyena, thought Varric. "I have a reputation to uphold."  
  
"Hawke -"  
  
"Either you tell me now, or I'll find out some other way, and when I do," Hawke paused and drummed along the rough wood of the table. "I might take more than just a finger or two."  
  
"I'll take you to him if you promise you won't do anything permanent."  
  
Hawke pursed his lips and scowled, "I assure you that what he did to my men was quite 'permanent.'"  
  
"This guy you're after," Varric took his quill from the inkwell and pulled a fresh sheet of parchment from a stack at his side, "he's well liked. He helps out a lot of people - he's a nice guy."  
  
"Have you gone soft in your old age, Varric? I just told you that the man is a murderer. A murderer and a thief."  
  
Varric peered at Hawke over the tops of his spectacles, "Speak for yourself, Hawke. Pot, meet kettle."  
  
"Fine, fine. I promise I won't kill or maim him. Satisfied? I need the dust back. There are templars breathing down my neck for the stuff."  
  
"You doing anything this afternoon?"  
  
"I'm going to go check on Merrill. Haven't heard from her in a week and she's probably missing meals staring into that blasted mirror again. Then I'm meeting Fenris at the docks, and ..." Hawke trailed off, there were other meetings he could blow off if it meant chasing down that crate of lyrium. "Nothing else really."  
  
Varric finished scribbling on the page and handed it to him. It was a crude map, with an 'X' on the upper right corner and a circle in the middle. "The circle is the lift, and the 'X' is what you're looking for. His name is 'Anders' - don't look at me like that. Nobody knows his real name. He runs a free clinic in dark town."  
  
"Free?" Now Hawke really was surprised.  
  
"What can I say? He's a nice guy."  
  
"I'm sure the Coterie just loves that. You been keeping this guy alive?" Doing business for free was a very, very bad idea. If there was money in it, and you were doing it for free, someone else was losing money, and that someone else would be out for your blood.  
  
Basic Kirkwall economics.  
  
"I have no idea what you're talking about."  
  
"And I'm the queen of Antiva."  
  
"Your armour clashes with the crown, your majesty." Varric countered, not missing a beat.  
  
Hawke folded up the map and tucked it into his pack, his words mingled with the loud clacks of metal boots, "I owe you one."  
  
Laying down his quill, Varric considered sending a runner to warn Blondie. Halfway through the message, he realized two things: one, that Blondie, being the stubborn git (and idiot) that he was, would lay low for at most a day or two and then end up back at the clinic anyway, and two, things would probably only be worse for him if Hawke didn't find him the first time he had to trudge through darktown for the mage.  
  
Also, if this message somehow ended up in Hawke's hands, there'd be nobody left to protect that damned idiotic healer.  
  
He threw the message into the fire and uttered a quick prayer. Not that he was a believer, but Anders was, and it wasn't as if anything else could have helped him anyhow.


	4. Why Do People Fight the Inevitable?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hawke makes an offer Anders can't refuse. So what does he do? He refuses it.

Deep in the warrens of darktown, in a little clinic with the unlit lanterns, Anders sneezed. Somebody was talking about him, he thought, then quickly chastised himself for his dumb superstition. What that meant, of course, was that Justice chastised him, since the fade spirit knew full well that signs and portents did not work in itchy noses.   
  
Justice also chastised him for closing the clinic for the afternoon. There was no real reason for this - barring the doors, leaving the lanterns off, neglecting his duties - aside from a general sense of unease since he left the Hanged Man.   
  
Anders rolled up another batch of bandages, made from boiled old rags he tore himself from donations, and nearly sliced his hand open on a pair of scissors. Distracted again. He couldn't stop thinking about that dangerous looking man outside Varric's door.   
  
He had such presence, leaning up against the wall smoking, and Anders couldn't tear his eyes away then, drawn by the gravity of him. He was tall, dark of hair with prominent gray streaks shot through, but the face was that of a very young man. Ferelden, perhaps, clad in the gleaming red and black plate mail of the Red Irons. That was what made him bolt, eventually.   
  
The men he killed the night before were Red Irons mercs. Killed was such a strong word, though. He acted entirely in self-defence, and if he hadn't - if he hadn't over-reacted they'd still be alive, yes. If he had hid instead of panicked, he could have avoided bloodshed. No, it was dark, the walls were too close, and he lost control. Anders was never good with small, enclosed places. Add to that the sound of plate mail and he was a nervous, homicidal wreck.   
  
Now Varric basically told him that unless he distilled the lyrium into potions, there was no way to move the dust. Dust was for templars, and they only did business with the select few, Varric not being one of them. There was only one man in the city who bought refined dust, and that was Hawke.   
  
"And you do NOT want to deal with Hawke," Varric added, shaking his head emphatically.   
  
According to Varric, the character 'Red Hawk' in his stories was a man who burned down the chantry in the middle of the night then slain a dragon the next day, and on top of that he kept a torture chamber in his basement. Since the chantry was obviously still standing smack dab in the middle of high town and he hadn't seen a dragon since Drake's Fall in Amaranthine, the story of the torture chamber could be easily discredited with the rest of the tall tales.   
  
An insistent knocking sounded at his doors. The lanterns were not lit; the doors were barred. If he kept quiet, perhaps this latest visitor would simply go away.   
  
The bar was suddenly lifted from its place and the door opened in the same breath, without anyone touching them. Well, at least he could be quite sure that those were not templars at the door. Templars didn't knock, and if they wanted to open a door, they wouldn't have used magic.   
  
It was that man again, the one at the Hanged Man waiting outside Varric's room. This time, Anders had a better look at him. He was standing straight and not leaning by a wall this time, and he looked impossibly tall, tall enough to brush the top of the door frame. An elf with white hair followed him, also impossibly tall - for an elf - and imposing, both wearing gleaming red armour. Either they didn't get a lot of use out of the stuff or their servants were meticulous when it came to getting blood out.   
  
"I've been told you have something of mine," the tall, handsome - what an inconsequential detail to pick up there, Anders, the word here is 'armed' not 'handsome' - mercenary lit a cigarette in front of Anders, holding it by his thumb and forefinger. His voice a mixture of honey and scotch, with a hint of deathroot smoke, poisonously sweet.  "Where is it?"   
  
Anders mustered up whatever bravado he had and met the stranger's eyes, "this is a clinic. You can't smoke in here."    
  
"My apologies." The man tipped his head and smiled, crushing the burning end of the cigarette between this fingers. "Now, you get one chance - I promised a friend that I wouldn't hurt you too badly if you'd only cooperate."   
  
"Are you threatening me, boy?" In for a copper, in for a sovereign. Anders was a powerful mage harbouring a fade spirit; he took on six mercs by himself. He could easily handle two. The moments the words left his mouth though, the thought was that he had rather gravely miscalculated.   
  
The tall man huffed out something that sounded like a laugh, and for a second Anders could see all the whites around his light blue eyes. Anders felt out of his depth, like a guppy in shark infested waters. “Fenris?"   
  
Fenris, presumably the tall elf with the ridiculous white hair, walked forward with his palms out in a placating gesture, and placed a hand on Anders' chest almost gently. Then a split second later said hand was in his chest, fingers wrapped around his heart. Anders trembled and made to back up and away from him, but the elf stopped him with a hiss, "don't move, mage. I can crush your heart before you move an inch."   
  
"Do you know who I am, Anders?" The man tapped a spot on the front of his armour. There, burned into the reddish metal, was the faint dark impression of a hawk in flight. "I didn't get where I am by 'threatening' people."   
  
Hawke rummaged in his pack until he seemed to have found what he was looking for, A small awl, three inches long, the kind used by carpenters to mark wood. With this he dipped into one of the vials strapped to his belt. He took one of Anders' hands gently in his own and kissed his knuckles in a mock gesture of chivalry.   
  
Then he laid it down flat on he table with his palm down. He positioned the awl right above it, the point just touching the back of Anders' hand.   
  
"You can let go now, Fenris." Hawke's eyes never left Anders' as Fenris withdrew his hand quickly enough to cause a bit of pain. As soon as he could breathe again, Justice reacted to the present danger, and Anders’ eyes began to glow an ethereal blue. Hawke pushed the awl down and jumped backward, and Anders' other hand swiped across thin air. As soon as it appeared, the spirit was gone. "Magebane. My very own special formula."   
  
"He's definitely carrying a demon with him. We should just kill him. I can make it quick and painless."   
  
"I'd rather not die if it's all the same to you," Anders grunted over the pain in his hand, which was literally nailed to the table. Hawke closed the distance between them with a few quick strides and yanked the awl upwards. "Fuck!"   
  
Anders grabbed a new bandage off the nearest rack and pressed it to the hole in his hand to staunch the bleeding. Hawke just stared at his frantic motions and smiled like the creepy bastard he was proving himself to be, and he gestured at Anders' injured hand. "Here, let me see that."   
  
"No!" Anders yanked his hand away, briefly aware of how girlish he sounded. "Why would I let you see my hand? You just stabbed it!"   
  
"And if I want to do it again, I will, and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it." Hawke said matter-of-factly, with a face that spoke irrefutable logic. "So why fight?"   
  
"You're psychotic, you know that?" Anders said, but stretched out his hand to Hawke anyway. Five minutes after meeting him, he was already finding it hard to say no to the man. Possibly because of his threats of bodily harm, but it was interesting to note nonetheless. Anders was used to being oppositional.   
  
"And you have such a pretty mouth," Hawke poured a bit of potion over the wound, and it quickly closed over, sealing the magebane inside. "Shame 'bout the shit that comes out of it."   
  
In the background, Fenris covered his mouth with his fist and coughed, "I'm not sure if what you're doing is entirely safe."   
  
"Of course it is." Hawke brought out a black cloth bag, "now you just put this over your head and come with us -"   
  
"Like hell I will!" Anders reverted to his first instinct: when in doubt, run. As soon as Hawke let go of his hand, he planned his escape route. He had no magic, true, but he could easily outrun two men in platemail any day of the week.   
  
And he almost did it too, right up until the point where he reached the entrance to the clinic and collapsed, his limbs dragging him as though they were chained to cement blocks.   
  
“I told you it was … special.” The voice reverberated in his head, followed by the sound of metal scracping across stone.


	5. No, I Didn't Burn Down the Chantry But I Do Have a Torture Chamber In My Basement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Anders finds out the hard way that Varrics tall tales aren't all that tall, and some of them may actually be true.

When Hawke cleared the slavers out of his family estate in his first year in Kirkwall, he found out that Kirkwall was built on top of more Kirkwall. There were Tevinter ruins under high town, connected by tunnels and caves - a city within a city between hightown and darktown. There were old things down here; sealed demons, haunted rooms, magical traps. During his year working (and taking over) the Red Irons, he spent his time clearing them out, knowing that one day, his house would connect directly to these tunnels.   
  
Right under the mansion Fenris used to squat in, he found a series of ritual chambers and torture rooms, complete with hundred-odd year old equipment and antique blades. Since the market on antique torture devices was non-existant, Hawke decided to keep them. When he was able to afford it, he bought the mansion out from the city - since its owners died and there were no claimants, and no one else wanted a haunted mansion with rotting dead bodies inclusive, Hawke acquired it at a fraction of the going rate for a mansion in hightown.   
  
There were rooms upon rooms, three levels down from the main floor where the mercenaries were housed, where the floor was slanted toward a drain in the corridor and the walls were built for the explicit purpose of muffling screams. Hawke stored most of the old things he found down here in one central, large room, and the only upgrade he added was a large incinerator in the corner.   
  
It was in this room that Anders awoke, on the floor, on top of a large rust coloured stain. His wrists were connected with a set of cuffs, and the cuffs were welded to a chain that went up toward the ceiling, around a pulley. Anders followed the chain with his eyes and saw that it was wound around a winch, so that he could be pulled up by the chain if necessary.   
  
He hoped that it would not be necessary.   
  
Anders turned his head and took in the rest of the room and almost pissed his pants right there on the floor. The room was rife with trophies. Old bits of armour covered in blood, some ancient, some new, decorated the walls, along with some truly antique swords made of all kinds of different metals, polished to a sheen that glimmered green and black in the torchlight. Both the weapons and the arms were too different in weight and sizes to belong to one single person. He felt a slight sense of gratification when he saw that some of those armour had the sword of mercy emblazoned on them.   
  
Not five feet away, seated in an ornate throne, was Hawke. He was out of his armour and dressed in the current hightown fashion, velvet tunic and soft buttery looking leather breeches, looking no less imposing than in his full regalia. He sat almost sideways with one knee hooked over an armrest, an open book resting easily on his thigh.   
  
Leather to Feather ... crossroads of form? Anders squinted at the title, leaning a bit too far to one side as did so, and his chains moved slightly, alerting Hawke to his wakefulness.   
  
Hawke closed the heavily bound book and dropped it onto a side table - on which, Anders noted, were clean surgical equipment. He swallowed. Hawke picked up a small sewing needle and a vial of green liquid and walked towards Anders, dropping to a crouch in front of him with unexpected grace for such a large man.   
  
"Now, I'm not going to nail you to anything - not unless you ask me very nicely. It's just a tiny little needle, see?" Hawke said as he coated the needle in the green substance.   
  
Anders considered fighting, even going so far as to talk to himself in this own head, to rail about how much of an injustice this was. Nothing answered him, however. Magebane severed his connection to the Fade, and consequently silenced Justice. Almost as an afterthought, he wondered why it didn’t hurt.   
  
The needle entered a spot on the side of the arm painlessly, and it didn't feel like anything because he had no mana left to sap. Someone had changed him while he was asleep, in a plain, clean linen shirt and a pair of rough cotton trousers. "What do you want from me?"   
  
"Where's the lyrium?"   
  
Again, he thought about resisting. It was hidden in the same spot as Karl's letters, and if he told Hawke where the lyrium was, he would probably find the letters as well. Circle mages were never good at subterfuge, and revealing those letters would have also revealed the mage underground to Hawke, and the man had already proven himself to be, in a word, unstable.   
  
"It's in my room. At the clinic," Anders said. "You'll need my help to get it out."   
  
"I doubt that. It's probably just a glamour rune on the wall or something, from what little I know of you so far," Hawke leaned in close enough for Anders to smell him - whiskey and tobacco, with a hint of expensive aftershave, and he had to hold back a shiver. Hawke caught the slight change in Anders' expression and misread it, "that's all the security you have, isn't it?"   
  
Anders could only purse his lips and look away, pouting a little, "are you going to let me go now?"   
  
A low rumble of a laugh emanated from Hawke's chest, low and dare he thought, sultry. Hawke shook his head.   
  
"Why? You already know where the dust is - "   
  
"You're not here because you stole the lyrium, Anders," Hawke began to turn the handle on the winch, pulling Anders up from the floor, and he kept turning it until Anders had to stand on his toes to keep the weight off his arms. "You're here because you killed my men."   
  
"I didn't have a choice! They attacked me!" Anders protested, but Hawke was on him in a second, one impossibly large hand closing around his windpipe.   
  
"Liar." Hawke kept squeezing until stars began to appear in Anders' peripheral vision. He obviously knew what he was doing; as soon as Anders thought he was about to pass out, Hawke let go, leaving the reddened impression of his fingers on the sides of his neck. "They went there to meet a mage, Anders. Their orders explicitly state that they were to avoid drawing their weapons if possible. You made the first move, and you killed them."   
  
"I..." Anders coughed, taking in deep breaths.    
  
Hawke gathered up his book and began putting out the torches in the sand dish kept beneath them, rolling each one deliberately as he moved away from Anders. The room got gradually darker as each of the torches were extinguished, and Anders held in his panic right up the door was about to close, leaving him in darkness.   
  
His first scream escaped the room right before Hawke closed the door. Hawke turned to Fenris, standing guard just outside, "well, now I know what he's afraid of. The dark, apparently."   
  
"Do you want me to get the lyrium out of his clinic?"   
  
"Get Carver - he can dispel the glamour rune. I'm guessing that door at the back, but it could be anywhere. Should be simple enough to find once he dispels the runes."   
  
Fenris took a few steps toward the stairs that led up to the barracks proper, then turned back to stare at Hawke, "why is the abomination still alive?"   
  
"I gave my word," the taller man shrugged, non-commital. He wasn't about to share.   
  
"He's dangerous, Hawke."   
  
"I keep a mabari in the house," Hawke flashed his hyena smile, "I can tame a little kitten."   
  
"A possessed mage can hardly be compared to a kitten."   
  
"We'll see." The faint sounds of screaming and pleading was occasionally loud enough to be heard through the padded door, but just barely.    
  
Fenris raised one eyebrow, "it would be kinder to kill him outright."   
  
"He'd probably disagree with you on that point."   
  
"What do you plan on doing with him?"   
  
"Hmm. Are you asking me to go easy on the mage?"   
  
Fenris paused, then shook his head. "I do not agree with enslavement or torture. It doesn't have to do with this ... specifically."   
  
"People need to know that they can't fuck with me," Hawke fumbled in his pocket for a cigarette, drew one out, and realized that he was out of matches. One flick of the wrist, and it was lit. "If anything happened to you, you'll be sure to know that I'll hunt down the bastard and it'd take him at least a week to die." He motioned toward the padded door with his cigarette, "intimidation only works when you follow through, get it?"   
  
"I see," Fenris nodded, satisfied with his answer. Hawke might come off as a heartless cutthroat to most people, but he was a family man. He considered all those in his inner circle to be family. It paid to stay on his good side.   
  
"You and Isabela will have to hold the fort for a couple of days. If anyone asks, tell them someone royally pissed me off. They don't need to know who. The men already know that six of our own died. They just need to know that I'm dealing with it."   
  
"Should I come check on you?"   
  
"Thanks, Fenris, but no. Get that lyrium to our contact, and uh," Hawke unlocked the door just opposite the torture chamber, "say hi to Carver and Bethany for me."


	6. The Various Uses of Surgical Equipment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hawke thinks Anders probably looks better naked. There, I said it. NAKED.

Hawke stepped into his second office, which was really just an apartment. It had a bathroom, bedroom, and a little kichen with a wood stove that connected with the upstairs chimney. It wasn't decorated at all, unlike his opulent bedroom in the estate. But then he wasn't usually the one using it.   
  
There was a reason why the locks were on the outside.   
  
He waited until it was time to give Anders another dose of magebane - two hours, since he wasn't cutting the mage right open and pouring the stuff in. When he finally opened that door, holding a lit torch, Anders had all but lost his voice shouting into the darkness. All the torches were lit before he turned to look at him.   
  
That stupid looking top knot he had in his hair had come undone, and red gold hair framed his face, reflecting the torchlight. His cheeks were flushed and covered in a sheen of sweat, and his entire body trembled from the strain of holding himself up by his toes.   
  
This time he simply walked up and stabbed Ander's shoulder with the magebane. Anders didn't even notice - his eyes were unseeing still, the sudden light of all the torches blindingly bright.   
  
Hawke stroke his cheek tenderly. The man smelled and looked like fear, and with any luck, it could only get better. He retrived a surgical blade off the table and showed it to Anders, who blinked at it. Hawke turned it a couple of times in his hand, allowing the light to reflect off of it into his eyes. When Anders finally recognized what it was, he tried to move back, but there was nowhere to go.   
  
"Don't move." Hawke began tearing into his linen shirt with the blade, slicing neatly through the fabric, tossing the remnants of the clothing aside without caring where they landed. Only when Anders was completely naked did he move to the winch to let the mage down, and when all the slack was let out of the chain, Anders collapsed into a heap on the floor, hugging himself.    
  
Hawke searched along the chain until he found the one with the hidden clasp. Unlocking it, he attached the chain to a strap of leather. "On your knees," he tugged on the chain. When Anders refused to move, Hawke tugged his head up by the hair, "still defiant, huh? Interesting."   
  
"I can't," Anders croaked out, "I can't move."   
  
Hawke laughed, and it wasn't a mocking sort of sound that Anders heard earlier, but a real, throaty laugh. He wrapped one arm over Anders' waist and lift him bodily, then threw him over one shoulder like a sack of potatoes.   
  
"Are you going to let me go now?" Anders asked hopefully, rattling his chains behind Hawke.   
  
"No."   
  
"Are you going to kill me?" He tried again. Anders could really use some hope, right about now.   
  
"No," by then, Hawke arrived at his bathroom. He lowered Anders into the copper tub, and attached the chain to a niche in the wall. "Clean up. I'll get you some food."   
  
Anders was left alone with his thoughts. He felt relieved in a way that he shouldn't have been, since he was still technically the captive of a very deranged man, but he was just relieved to be seeing and talking to a person again, even if it was the man holding his chains.   
  
It was hard to tell time in the dark, with every muscles in his body straining to keep his arms from coming out of their sockets. The hot water was doing wonders for them now, and without knowing what was next planned for him, Anders sank lower in the water and began washing his hair.


	7. Yes, this Mouth Does Get Me Into Trouble A Lot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Anders babbles because Justice can't talk to him with all that magebane in his blood.

Hawke leaned against the bathroom door, willing his erection away before he went upstairs to ring for dinner. He had had his share of men and women in his bed, but none like Anders, with his milky skin and hair the colour of spun gold... and most of all, the way he dared call Hawke 'boy.’   
  
He felt somewhat … affected. In a good way, which was different from the usual things that gave him migraines.   
  
Even before he acquired fame and fortune, Hawke was used to people catering to his whims. Being tall, handsome and strong had its advantages; either people wanted him or was afraid of him, and both resulted in Hawke getting what he wanted. What was easily begotten became boring, and sex had been nothing but blind rutting since he came to Kirkwall. There were still affairs, and Isabella, but he could really use a diversion or two, and he might have just found it.   
  
After dinner, Hawke chained Anders back up in the torture chamber, but left him on the floor so he could stretch his legs and rest for a while. He settled back in his throne and hadn't read more than two pages before Anders started talking again.   
  
Magebane, with a touch of elfroot, a hint of deathroot, and just a drop of orichalcum. Perfectly painless. Layered for loss of inhibitions by the inches. He sold the soldier’s bane version to the mages and the magebane version to the templars - it was a living, and in Kirkwall where there was an abundance of both Circle exports, it was a very good living.   
  
"Did you burn down the chantry at some point? Fought any dragons?" Anders sat with his legs drawn up to his chin in a futile attemple to cover up his nudity. Not that he felt shameful about being naked or anything, all the scars on his body were earned with his youthful defiance and he was proud of them. It was a matter of principle.   
  
"Excuse me?" Hawke lifted his gaze away from the book. "Oh, you've been listening to Varric's tale of the Red Hawk. No to the chantry, and yes to the dragons. Most of them were dragonlings and drakes. I've killed one dragon - with help."   
  
"I killed two, well, you know. With help."   
  
"Oh?"   
  
"Well, one of them wasn't really real, and the other one was already fighting darkspawn, so ..." Anders babbled, and Hawke listened with interest. Within an hour, Anders had practically spilled his entire life story.   
  
Usually, the amount of torture paraphrenalia made people talk. All Hawke had to do was sit in that stuffed throne - inherited from the mansion, somebody had a dark sense of humour - and caress a scalpel or something equally innocuous. Anders, however, seemed like he just felt uncomfortable with silence and had to fill it up with something. He probably would have done the same without what little drugs he had in his system.   
  
"So you really ran away from templars eight times," Hawke spoke up, eventually, interrupting Anders' monologue.   
  
"Including that last time with Justice, yeah." Without Justice constantly admonishing him and checking his speech, Anders felt strangely stretched out, like the air in the fade when he remembered to breathe in his dreams. He never did have much of a verbal filter before the spirit took up permanent residency in his head.    
  
Life was divided into 'before' and 'after' Justice, and it was strangely liberating to be without the constant vigilance of the spirit, even though he was bound. All his life he ran away from chains, and yet no one chained him the way Justice did. He couldn't even run away from his thoughts.   
  
"Why did you run?"   
  
"I've never really asked myself that," Anders shrugged. "It never occurred to me not to. Any chance I got, I ran. Wouldn't you?"   
  
"I guess so. I would have planned it better."   
  
"You've never lived in the circle. Being watched all the time," Anders spat the word 'watched' as though it was bitter, "makes it hard to 'plan.'"   
  
"Then I'd just stay. Keep my head down, get them to trust me and wait for an outside asignment," Hawke's mind was spinning now, and part of it was planning a coup in the future to get Bethany out. "Then I'd get kidnapped and maybe sold into slavery somewhere, on paper. You're just impulsive."   
  
"Hey," Anders was feeling brave, or perhaps foolhardy. More likely the latter than the former, but when things began to get safe and routine, he just couldn't stop making things interesting. "You don't actually use this room, do you?"   
  
Hawke stared at the blond man on the floor. Here was a man who was willing to accidentally write his own death sentence, if ever there was one, "go on."   
  
"Most of this stuff looks really old, like the trophies nobles hang up in their great rooms. That rack over there is Ferelden, and I haven't seen one since the basement in Vigil's Keep. The swords that look somewhat new on the walls doesn't look like they've seen any use, and anything that look remotely like dried blood looks like dried three hundred year old blood." Anders stopped suddenly, noting the look in Hawke's eyes - like a wolf who just spotted supper. "Not that I don't think you won't start using them, or anything, just ... saying."   
  
"That mouth get you into trouble a lot?"   
  
"All the time," mumbled Anders.   
  
"You know what I think? I think you like getting caught."   
  
"What? That's absurd."   
  
"You run because you like having them right on your heels. Then you goad them into hitting you because then they'd be the ones breaking the rules," he tipped Anders' chin up with one hand and forced the man to meet his light blue eyes, "gives you a reason to hate them. Makes it easier to group them all together and call them names."   
  
Anders had never been very introspective. "What would you know about it?"   
  
"Don't shift the focus over to me, Anders. We're talking about you. But since you're so interested in which part of this room I do use, I best not disappoint you."   
  
Hawke disappeared for a moment somewhere in the darkness of the corner of the large room, and returned with a metal bar with a leg on each end, and a single long bar with shackles built into them. He inserted the bar with legs into two holes on the floor that Anders hadn't noticed before, then yanked the chain forward, pulling Anders with them. He clipped the cuffs on to the bar, then padlocked it, giving Anders' hands a condescending pat as he did so.   
  
Then he pushed the other long piece of metal down onto Anders' ankles, locking the shackles, with the bar resting across his ankles. It forced his legs apart, and he couldn't sit on his heels on account of the bar. Anders shifted a few times, trying to get comfortable without looking lewd, but every time he tried to relax his back dipped and his arse stuck out into the air.   
  
"You're quite a sight." Hawke ran one hand up Ander's side, feeling a trembling in the skin beneath his fingertips. He moved his mouth close enough breathe into the man's ear, "you like the rush, don't you? I bet you love surprises."   
  
Anders shook his head in denial, biting back a moan as Hawke reached around his body and palmed his erection. As much as he wanted to say no, he thrusted into Hawke's hand enthusiastically. In answer, Hawke slapped him once, hard, on his arse, leaving a bright red handprint behind. Anders whimpered, half in excitement and half in much less pain than he expected, and when Hawke hit him again, his body betrayed him by moving into the touch. Two more hard slaps and he was writhing, squirming, not to get away but meeting Hawke's hand halfway.   
  
It went on for an indefinite amount of time, Anders lost track of how many times he was smacked, but it wasn't long enough for the touch on his skin to numb - if anything, the swelling was causing it to tingle. Then all of a sudden he was moving away, and Anders whined at the loss of his touch. Hawke turned around and stroked him under the chin, then that same hand that was spanking him came up to swipe under his eyes, wiping away tears that he wasn't even aware had fallen.   
  
"So beautiful...and such a good boy. Do you want a present?" Hawke smiled down warmly at him. In a fit of what he would later regard as insanity for the rest of the night, Anders nodded. Hawke's eyes revealed just a bit of his usual crazy before he stepped backwards, "I'll be right back."


	8. Is That a Whip Down Your Pants

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hawke gives Anders a surprise, and Anders reciprocates by showing off his talents.
> 
> In other words, total, unabashed PR0N.

He did return shortly, holding something that looked like a whip made entirely of leather tassels. Then his hand shifted, and Anders realized it wasn't a whip at all, though it could be used as one. It was a realistically fashioned phallus, wrapped in smooth leather and heated at some point so that the leather conformed to the shape. It was a bit larger than the biggest penis Anders had ever seen, and he subconsciously lifted his arse in anticipation.  
  
Hawke raised an eyebrow, amused. He was looking for submission, but Anders seemed to be the kind of man who tended to manipulate - he read what Hawke wanted and gave it to him readily if it meant getting what he wanted himself. The erotic display was working beautifully, however, and he needed to show Anders who was in charge.  
  
Hawke looked into those warm amber eyes, clouded with lust, and he just couldn't cause pain as he had originally planned. Instead, he coated the phallus first in a thin layer of magebane, then dribbled half an elfroot potion over it, so that any tears it caused would be healed immediately. Holding the phallus in one hand, he ran his other hand down Ander's back, soothing him, until he came upon the pucker of smooth skin in the middle of his cleft. There, he teased with a thumb, never quite penetrating, just soft strokes in circles, his fingers lightly patting the sac underneath.  
  
Placing the phallus down for now, he tipped Anders' face toward him. He looked not a little mad, clenching his teeth, holding himself so still his arms shook. "Tell me what you want - boy," he breathed out the last word, the side of his mouth tipped up in a smile that did not reach his eyes. Anders shivered and shook his head, "so stubborn."  
  
Hawke slipped a finger in, seeking and crooking it while he studied Anders' expression, "that feels good, doesn't it? Don't you want something bigger? No?" He slowed his hand, brushing only occasionally against the sweet spot and laughed darkly as Anders writhed against him, trying to fuck himself on Hawke's hand. He guided Anders' chin on top of his cuffs, forcing his face up, and slipped his hand out again and teased at his entrance with the whip end of the phallus.  
  
Without warning, Hawke brought the soft tassells down hard against Anders' arse, hard enough to leave light welts. Then he turned it over and rubbed at his entrance with the blunt end of the phallus while his other hand tugged at his sac again, "what will it be, mage? I'll give you whatever you want."  
  
Anders held himself taut as a bow string, and he shook with the effort of not begging, but even the most stubborn of souls had its limits. Perhaps with Justice he could have held out, but Anders, as a person, not the spirit-imbued entity he had become, was always good at taking pleasure where it could be found. The choice Hawke had given him were apparently pleasure or pain, and he wasn’t much for pain - not really.   
  
After a few more minutes of teasing, Anders yelled, "just fuck me dammit -" Hawke obliged, pushing the entire phallus inside him in one stroke, probably tearing him in the process, but there was hardly any pain - he couldn't breathe or think, all his sensations concentrated on the big handle in his arse. Hawke took hold of the tassells, gave it a little turn so that the knob on the end rubbed right across his sweet spot and Anders was cumming, hard and sudden with the want of months of forced celibacy, thick white ropes of semen spurting across the floor beneath him.  
  
Even then Hawke did not let up on the assault on his senses, pumping the phallus slowly, gently nudging him until he was hard again, all the while murmuring encouragements and running one hand soothingly up and down his back, "so beautiful, yes, that's it ..." and Anders didn't hear half of it, only the general feeling that he was good.  
  
Hawke checked his eyes, with his dilated pupils and that blissful expression, and he felt himself harden in his breeches. Orichalcum was the last part of his formula to kick in, spurred on by an orgasm. The best part was how it blended in with the desire already present so that the subject didn’t even know it was there. Although, with the way Anders had reacted so far, he might have done just fine without the drugs at all.  
  
Perhaps that would make a good gamble for another time.  
  
Anders came to his senses slowly, rocking his hips against the hard length still inside him, and he raised his eyes to see Hawke undoing the laces of his breeches. His movements were slow and deliberate, teasing, stroking from bottom to tip over the large bulge under the cloth. Each time he slipped the lace out of another eyelet, he spent a few moments teasing, all the while keeping his gaze on Anders' expression. When he finally freed his erection, the mage tried hard to keep his eyes from bugging out of his head.  
  
Hawke was ... proportional. Considering that he was easily the height of an average Qunari, proportional just happened to be also impressive, and bigger even than the hard leather phallus lodged in his arse. Anders felt the tassels brush gainst his balls, teasing him, and realized that he must've been squeezing and moving it, shaking his 'tail' like a dog in heat. He felt a flush spread across his cheeks and closed his eyes, and only heard the sound of Hawke's laughter as he stepped closer, a hand gently stroking his hair.  
  
Soft, velvety skin brushed against his mouth, and Anders opened his eyes to the sight of Hawke smearing precome across his lips, then pulling away, a string of moisture trailing behind him. Without thinking, he stuck out his tongue and lapped at it, stretching up to reach the head of Hawke's cock.  
  
The hand in his hair held him back, and Anders made an undignified sound of dismay, his brain was mortified, most other parts of him just wanted that cock. "Shh...just lick it. You don't have to suck on it if you can't. It's probably too big for your mouth anyway."  
  
Hawke moved forward again, and he took his hand away from Anders, resting them on top of the bar instead, coming close enough so that Anders didn't have to strain his neck to get at him.  
  
Anders licked at the crown first, drinking up the salty fluid at the tip, then mouthed his way down the side of the shaft, swiping the flat of his tongue against the side, all the way down, suckling the sac when he arrived at it. He took a peek at Hawke's knuckles - he couldn't see the man's face the way he was leaning over Anders - his grip was tight on the bar, and he heard an appreciative hum as he sucked the entire sac into his mouth.  
  
Without his hands, Anders couldn't get any leverage moving back up, so he pushed the shaft against Hawke's stomach with his lips. Eventually, he was at the tip again, and he suckled at just the crown. It was a little too big to fit entirely in his mouth, but if there was one thing Anders couldn't resist, it was a challenge, especially since Hawke already told him he wouldn't fit. No one, probably, had ever tried to do what he was planning.  
  
While Hawke stood patiently, seemingly unaffected, Anders methodically slicked him from base to tip, using the bar as support, instead of a hindrance.  
  
When he thought he had prepared enough, he stuck his tongue out in a yawn and slowly coaxed the hard length in. Once he had half of it in, he began tipping his head backwards, testing his gag reflex and backing off whenever he felt the itch until he was all but acclimated with the feeling before he took it all the way to the back of his mouth, and swallowed.  
  
Above him, Hawke let out a strangled sound of surprise. Spurred on by what little reaction he was able to coax out of the stoic man, Anders bobbed his head in shallow motions, and Hawke didn't pull on his hair or push him, allowing him to set the pace.  
  
His skin was on fire, and Anders felt like he was floating, suspended between the cock in his mouth and the phallus in his arse, the pain in his knees became inconsequential and distant, and only this moment mattered. Each rock of his own hips that moved him forward onto Hawke also nudged the hardness lodged inside of him, setting off waves of pleasure that was all at once too much and not nearly enough.  
  
Suddenly Hawke was hard as steel inside his mouth. He quickly pulled out, pumping his seed all over Anders' face. Anders stuck out his tongue and licked at it, light headed and lips swollen. Hawke dropped down to his knees in front of him and bit and licked at his chin where semen dripped, wiping at his face with one hand, "that was so good, Anders. Just perfect."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just so you know, when I was writing this, I was also watching the Holy Grail, and that's why the oral sex came AFTER the spanking, not before.
> 
> Yeah, that's me.


	9. The Thedas Equivalent of Ecstasy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Anders is denied, and Hawke attempts to assuage some of his guilt.
> 
> In other words, more pr0n.

With his cum slicked hand, Hawke reached under the bar and between Anders' legs, wrapping it around his erection, while with the other he pulled at the 'tail' and rocked the phallus inside of him, locking them in an accidental embrace.   
  
He was surrounded by sensation. Hawke’s breath in his ear, a little uneven; his pulse jumping by Anders’ lips, fast like a rabbit’s; the feeling of soft fabric sliding along fevered skin, rich with Hawke’s body heat;  the scent of sweat and musk with a hint of smoke, cyanide sweet.   
  
Anders gave in to it, his own voice distant in his ears begging, for something, for anything, for more of what he was being given. Weightless and locked between those arms, he didn’t try to hold on or control himself, and his release came as a surprise along the waves of pleasure coursing through his body. It was inside of him and all over him, and he was aware that Hawke had infiltrated even his mind when he came moaning Hawke’s name into the man’s neck.   
  
Hawke moved his hand up Ander’s torso, dragging his fingers over burning hot skin, the aphrodisiac in full swing now. He showed his hand to Anders, who immediately began licking at the fingers, lapping at each digit, moaning softly and meeting Hawke’s eyes whenever he reached each tip, pulling them into his mouth and laving them for good measure.   
  
Anders watched Hawke tuck himself back into his trousers, and he bit back a whimper of disappointment. Hawke smiled at his misery - the tassels were giving him away, each time he squeezed on the phallus - and he moved behind Anders, pulling the length out and pushing it back in, until Anders was thrusting back and about ready to come again. Hawke pushed a little harder then, moving the bulbous knob just over his sensitive spot and the end moved past the tight ring of muscle near his entrance, lodging the hard shape inside of him, leaving only the leather tassels outside.   
  
His hand moved away and Anders screamed in frustration at how close he was. He rocked his hips, trying to get the phallus to move out a little, seeking any kind of friction, but it was no use. The bars that held his legs apart and his hips off the ground, most likely designed for maximum frustration. Vaguely, he remembered Hawke’s words and wondered how many people had been locked in this same spot before, what that stain on the floor meant, and how many of them were templars.   
  
Hawke draped his body over Anders' back, no weight, just close enough for the cloth of his shirt to brush along his skin, a delicious burn that flared to scorching in his lower half. He licked up the side of one ear, and whispered, "ache for me, and I'll fill you up in the morning."   
  
"You're going to leave me like this all night?" Anders asked incredulously. He might have preferred the whip, or the rack, which was so prominently displayed in the room, and as he focused on it, he noticed that it was dusty. Aside from the spot he knelt in and the equipment he was attached to, the rest of the room was apparently just for show.   
  
He felt a pang of guilt over how easily he gave in. Hawke was handsome enough, but he did put Anders in chains. He was always so proud of his defiance, and the little resistance he put up on this occasion could only be described as pathetic.   
  
Hawke, always perceptive, seemed to have noticed. Crouching in front of Anders, he tipped his chin up, “you did well, actually. But nobody can fight this stuff.”   
  
Anders tried to focus on the vial in Hawke’s hands, but his eyes refused to cooperate. His head felt cloudy, as though there wasn’t enough blood in it to help him think, “magebane?”   
  
“Not just magebane. Just don’t feel too bad about it.” He ran his hands over Anders’ sides, coaxing shivers from his skin, “I dosed you enough earlier to last an hour or so … but,” he pulled at the tassels a little, tugging a few of them with his fingers, “there’s enough on that to last you all night.”   
  
“Bastard,” Anders gritted out, on the point of tears, and Hawke mouthed at his pulse point, worrying at the hollow of his collarbone with his tongue, smiling into his neck as Anders’ curses turned into moans and whimpers, desperate for more touch on heated skin.   
  
"I'll make it worth your while." Hawke stroked his back and gave his rump a little squeeze before pushing himself away, adding some wood to the incinerator that did double duty as a heater. He planned on not letting the mage have a scrap of clothing until he was done with him.


	10. Priorities, Priorities.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our Hawke gets a little introspective, and Aveline visits, asking after the missing Sister Petrice. While he's all smiles for Aveline, he shows his dark, dark side to our dear readers.

It took too much willpower to stop himself from pulling that plug out of the blonde and buggering him all night. As it was, that second orgasm he allowed him was already spoiling him, as demonstrated by the fact that he was still cussing at Hawke through the door, loud enough for him to hear it in the hall. If he had more self control, he could have had the man weeping in that room by now, but he barely resisted kissing that mouth after that - amazing - feat he pulled off.   
  
Leaning against the headboard, Hawke sat down to a well deserved smoke, and saw that his hand was trembling in spite of the long drags he was drawing in. He was in a heap of trouble. Anders carried unbridled passion, and it was downright contagious.   
  
Everyone else said 'let me go' when he told them he'd give them whatever they wanted, not 'fuck me.' That man didn't have his priorities straight. He also wore all his emotions on his face, fear, pain, arousal, anger - it was all there and he didn’t care who saw it.   
  
“Hawke.” Fenris’ voice was on the other side of the door.   
  
Hawke stubbed out the cigarette and sighed, “I thought I was on vacation. Door’s open.”   
  
Fenris made no move to come in, and remained talking on the other side, “Aveline is coming by, and she didn’t send a message ahead.” A pause. “She plans to surprise you.”   
  
“Ain’t gonna happen,” Hawke rolled off the bed, a little unsteady on his feet, but he could always pour himself a drink and use that as an excuse. “Let’s go sit in my office and look busy.”   
  
Fenris had already cleaned up the office. Not that there was anything incriminating to be had, the way he conducted business. Technically, both magebane and soldier's bane were readily available, legal substances that he had licenses for - he even paid tax for each bottle he sold. The fact that he charged thirty times the going price for half the amount and one had to jump through hoops to buy the stuff didn’t make it criminal.   
  
When asked by the local newspaper how he managed it, he simply told them that he sold only the painless version he personally developed. After all, Hawke did not believe in needless cruelty where the apprehension of apostates and bandits were concerned. As for the price, why, part of it went to the local Ferelden charities.   
  
All that besides, he was practically funnelling money from the Gallows straight to the Viscount’s Keep. They wanted him to stay in business, so Seneschal Bran kept Aveline’s hands forever tied.   
  
“Hawke - working late tonight?” She looked genuinely shocked that he wasn’t in a private party room with some nobles discussing the viability of trading in illegal caviar. (Incidentally, that wouldn’t have been very lucrative at all.)   
  
“Why, Aveline. What a surprise,” and he sat a little heavier on the word surprise, just to rub it in a little. She was family, since they did come to Kirkwall together, but not family. Aveline was too straight-laced for all that. Working for him would have made her head explode.   
  
As opposed to, of course, wondering what he was up to all the time, which also looked as though it was doing funny things to her brain, if her temper in his presence was anything to go by.   
  
“We found Ser Varnell.” Aveline stated, flatly.   
  
His eyebrows didn’t even twitch. “You find him in the gallows like I told you?”   
  
“He wasn’t there.”   
  
“The Blooming Rose, then?” He threw in a little smile, Maker only knew how many templars disappeared through there and it wasn’t even his doing.   
  
“He found him wandering the docks,” Aveline laid both hands on his desk, leaning over him. “Without his arms and armour. The poor man can’t remember his own name.”   
  
“How unfortunate. The docks. What, by the Qunari compound?”   
  
“What did you do to him, Hawke? What did you give him?” She was getting agitated and raising her voice, which was was always the case when he was being so very helpful. “If there’s an antidote -”   
  
“Sit down, Aveline.” Hawke didn’t appreciate being lorded over, especially since Aveline was going to owe him one. “My office, my rules. You want me to stand and loom over your desk, I’ll come visit you.”   
  
“Give me something to work with, Hawke. He was last seen coming in here,” she sat, in a chair too small for a person in plate mail, too hard for leather pants, and too short for a human. It was his visitor’s chair. It was all very intentional.   
  
Hawke bluffed right back, lighting a cigarette mostly because she hated it, “nobody saw him walk in here.”   
  
Aveline pursed her lips. There were no witnesses willing to testify against Hawke. There were annoymous tips, left by people who were pious but too scared to come forward in person.   
  
“But I’ll tell you what,” Hawke rested his hands on top of his laced hands, smoke obscuring his features, “Varnell and I were … acquaintances. He and a Sister Petrice asked me to escort a friend of his out of the city, before I bought the company.”   
  
“What does this have to do with -” Aveline started, impatient. Always impatient.   
  
“This friend of theirs was a Sarabaas. Qunari mage. They fed me some cock and bull story about him wanting to be free. Bullshit. It was a set-up; we took the mage outside of the city, we got ambushed. Fenris almost died. The mage killed himself, Varnell and Petrice fucked off, I didn’t see them for a year.”   
  
Sher perked up, “so you did see them again?”    
  
“Varnell and I had a little get together. To talk about old times -” She made to get up again, must have been that urge to loom, and he raised a hand to remind her that this was his office, “and you know, he was a little quiet at first, what with selling me out and all, but after a few drinks he really opened up. Had some interesting stories to tell.”   
  
Varnell fought. It was quite delicious actually - two doses of soldier’s bane, so weak he was barely able to hold himself up, a cage over his cock, a phallus in his ass, looking surprisingly good in a spider gag. And he still wouldn’t talk.   
  
In a flash of inspiration, Hawke sent a note to Petrice at the Chantry to meet Varnell in darktown, using the seal he found in the templar’s armour. She was stupid enough to show up alone - or perhaps she simply trusted Varnell that much.   
  
Hawke discovered that, under layers and layers of robes, Sister Petrice didn’t wear smalls.   
  
When Petrice started begging Varnell to make it all stop, he removed the gag.   
  
Everyone talked eventually. Hawke always wondered why they didn’t do it sooner. The end result was always the same anyway, no matter how hard they fought. Talking sooner simply saved them some pain. Despite his reputation, which Varric propagated, he took no pleasure in causing pain.   
  
He didn’t appreciate being lied to and he took measures to ensure the safety of his own. Some actions were simply necessary.   
  
“They were using the Grand Cleric’s seal to make fake walking orders,” Hawke feigned boredom and fiddled with a pencil on his desk, “stealing Qunari mages on their patrols. They also plan on kidnapping the Qunari delegates and killing them - says the heathens shouldn’t have a right to live in the city.”   
  
“Do you have any proof?” Aveline looked a little shaken. Damn straight she should have been - if he was telling the truth, he just prevented, or as Hawke believed, delayed, a war.   
  
He nodded at Fenris, who produced a little folder from the bottom of a filing cabinet, placing it on the table between his ledger books with orders for armour polish and the time sheets his men handed in, “There’s a set of the fake papers with the grand cleric’s seal on them, a written confession. In his handwriting. With his seal on it. He does still have his seal, doesn’t he?”   
  
Aveline blushed suddenly, and Hawke hid a snicker. They found his seal. “Yes. It was the only thing he had. On him.”   
  
“Well, then, we have nothing else to talk about now, do we? And you’re very welcome, by the way. The Red Irons are always glad to do our city guard a  favor .”   
  
“Sister Petrice is also missing,” she added, as though it wasn’t the reason she was here all along. Varnell was found. Petrice was gone.   
  
“Well, I’m afraid her and I haven’t spoken. Maybe she skipped town after knowing that Varnell sold her out? Stealing the Grand Cleric’s seal is good for a hanging,” Hawke flashed a smile, all white teeth and cold eyes, and even Aveline felt a chill.   
  
“What did you do to Varnell? Why is he like that?” Aveline. Once on a scent she never let it go, like a mabari.   
  
He took them both into his ‘apartment,’ threw the locks, and gave them three square meals a day, slipped through a slot in the door. He even gave them elfroot potions for whatever wounds he might have accidentally inflicted on them. Varnell lasted three days before the delirium kicked in and he strangled Petrice.   
  
Hawke removed the body himself. He didn’t lie to Aveline. They never did get a chance to have their heart to heart.   
  
As for Varnell, all he did was withhold what the chantry gave him everyday. The man’s brain was held together by lyrium after all his years of being a templar, and withdrawal was like taking the supports in a building away. His mind collapsed and his shell kept moving. The process was irreversable. Very unfortunate thing for all those retired templars.   
  
Poor Bodahn. Hawke was quite sure that the dwarf regretted offering his services as a manservant after having to clean up that room.   
  
Hawke spread his hands, “I didn’t do anything to him. We had our talk, I offered him dinner, he left on his own two legs. Goodbye, Aveline.”   
  
Fenris waited until she was out in the night air of Hightown before shutting the office door. “You forgot the part where he partook of your hospitality for a week while you wined and dined him.”   
  
Hawke smirked, “me, offering such luxuries to a templar? No. People will talk.”


	11. Leather to Feather: Crossroads of Form

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hawke and Anders go through a fetish fueled morning, and I don't mean religiously.

Anders greeted him in the morning bleary eyed and flushed, a fresh trail of semen on the floor underneath him. Hawke laughed, "did you have a wet dream about me like a teenager?"

Shut up," he mumbled, "I can't feel my knees."

He surprised Bodahn this morning by being awake before the dwarf. Hawke had a habit of sleeping until he absolutely needed to get up to keep office hours. This morning he was up at dawn, overcame with a feeling that he was looking forward to something. In his years in Kirkwall, he created a monster - a Kirkwall that needed Hawke. When was the last time he wanted something for himself?

Hawke jabbed Anders with a needle quickly and painlessly on the outside of one arm, and the mage twitched and made a face, “ugh. Do you have to do that? I promise I won’t throw fireballs at you.”

“You’re asking for a lot of trust from someone I chained up all night,” he unclasped Anders’ legs and detached his cuffs from the bar, and he collapsed bonelessly into Hawke’s arms. 

It was strange to be cradled and carried. He whimpered a little as his knees folded toward his chest, the angle making him push against the handle still buried in him. Hawke kissed his brow, "you did well."

"You're one twisted sonovabitch." Anders droned out, voice a little hoarse. He’d called the man every single name the night before, with the door between them. That was one of the more flattering ones.

"I dare you to say that to my mother. She’s scarier than me." he carried Anders across the hall into the apartment, and laid him on the rug. Pushing down on his shoulders lightly, he was pleased to see Anders arch his back up on his own while Hawke slowly twisted the phallus away. He moaned and bucked as the last inches finally moved out of him, leaving him feeling unbearably empty. His body moving ahead of his brain by a smidgen, Anders pushed his arse up toward Hawke in offering.

Leather tassels lashed at his rump, a shot of quick pain, jolting him enough that his mind caught up. Anders started crawling away on his elbows, his legs completely useless right now, but Hawke held him fast by the waist, pulling him upwards as he rubbed soothingly where the skin was just stinging a moment earlier. 

"That's for calling me names. And if I tallied up all the ones you called me last night, we’d be here all day. Now be quiet.” there was that underlying threat, where he could stop playing nice any time he so chose. Anders opened his mouth, to curse at him again, but his choice was taken away when Hawke pushed a ball gag into his mouth and tightened the strap.

A black bag was lowered over his head and he panicked, taking in too shallow breaths around the gag, but that hand was still rubbing his back and another began feathering touches up and down his cock and the touch anchored him, _not alone_. He was picked up again, then large hands helping him stand straight on smooth tiles, his arms pulled up by the chains.

Hawke was humming something, a strange little Dalish sounding melody. Anders held on to it, and though he still couldn’t see anything, he knew that he hadn’t been left by himself. It occurred to him then, that Hawke was doing this for him to remind him that even though they were not touching, he wasn’t left alone in the dark.

He didn’t know how to process that information, but his thoughts were interrupted as a warm, moist towel snuck under the black cloth, wiping along his cheeks and around his neck, travelling all over his body to clean off all the evidence of their evening.

There was the sound of water splashing, and then Hawke’s voice, humming, hands moving over him, straps of leather being wound around his limbs. Upper thighs, his knees, around his torso, around his chest, restrictive enough that he couldn’t take a deep breath but loose enough to not be uncomfortable.

One of his legs was lifted up by the knee, and his cock twitched. Behind him sounded the rumble of a laugh somewhere near the back of his neck, breath tickling at his skin, too close, and that only made it jump again, “not yet. Patience.”

His other leg was lifted, then the hands withdrawn and he was suspended, lifted by bits of leather strung all over him, his knees held open by something curved and metallic resting against his back.

It should have been claustrophobic - not having the use of his limbs, trapped in a cage of metal and leather, his sight obscured, even his words stripped away. There were many distractions from those thoughts; pain in the places where the leather bit into his skin; the moisture left by the hot towel, drying and cooling him even in the warm room he was in, raising goose flesh; a sharp intake of breath that was in front of him and not behind him now; a feeling of vertigo as he was spun.

People spoke of feeling eyes on them when they were watched, and Hawke’s gaze was a solid presence, not just an ethereal feeling. It was there, in the bite of leather behind his knee, a brush and rattle of the chains that ran along an arm, wherever he wasn’t completely still, he was almost sure Hawke was watching. Anders mumbled something behind his gag, not sure what he wanted to say but just wanted to say something - Hawke, do something, say something, touch me, touch me, touch me.


	12. Runaway Mages Aren't Exactly Submissive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Anders gets a different set of chains and leathers. Yup. This is the part you're browsing for.
> 
> Hawke finds out that manipulators don't make very good submissives, and loses his patience.

Something soft and rough and wet was brushing against his hole, and Anders whimpered and moaned inarticulately at the sensation. If he had any thoughts of rebellion, it fled his mind in a flash. Along with that touch, there were hands - calloused, scarred, raised bands of flesh along the smooth skin - holding his hips, with a grip that left bruises.

A tongue was inside him, laving the sides of him where he was stretched open, his muscles tensing and flexing with oversensitivity. Stubble grazed along his cheeks, a nose pushing into the spot at the base of his spine, and then fingers joined that tongue, reaching deeper than it could, rubbing and stretching him beyond an entire night spent held open by a phallus.

“Beautiful,” Hawke, voice low and husky, coloured by something more than smoke. “Do you want to see yourself?”

Anders told himself that he simply wanted light again, not to be left sightless, and nodded. The hood was lifted away, his eyes took a moment to adjust, and then he was facing a silver mirror, a blond man bound and gagged -

\- the sight of himself, but not himself, wasn’t something he could have prepared for.

He held something golden inside his mouth, a match to his red gold hair, messy and still matted in parts but it reflected the low light, cast by candles, a halo about his flushed cheeks. The leather that bound him was dark brown, almost black, a high contrast to his pale skin, wound a little too tight around his butt cheeks so that his weight kept him open. He could see his rosette in the mirror, contracting and grasping at nothing.

Anders was an offering fit for an old god, hung above a Tevinter altar underground. Anders was prey caught in a spider’s web, bound and helpless, spread open, exposed, turned inside out so his entire body was the organ, an extension of the flesh pointing erect between his legs.

Candlelight danced in Hawke's eyes, darker than their usual paleness, full of danger and promise, and as Anders’ gaze drifted downward, he could see Hawke’s fingers disappearing inside of him, a thumb resting behind his sack, already pulled tight against his body though his cock remained untouched.

Hawke took his downcast gaze as shyness, and he tipped Anders’ chin up so their eyes met in the mirror, “do you understand what you are, Anders? If I want to bind you and keep you here, I will.”

The fingers inside him were pulled out and turned over so that they touched his bundle of nerves, featherlight and no pressure, “look at you. You look like you belong here.”

Then the hand was gone, moved to his hip, leaving him empty and wanting again. Fingers pinched at the pebbles on his chest that showed between strips of dark leather, Hawke’s mouth at his neck, the pressure of his tongue on skin behind one ear. He could feel Hawke behind him, the evidence of his arousal hard against his arse, thrusting along his cleft but no contact at all where he needed it, on his cock. Anders tried moving his hips, but he was locked into place, spread and slicked but he couldn’t even use his voice to beg. What came out was a keening whimper that made Hawke laugh against his earlobe, stubble scraping along his own.

He placed a hand on his member then, and lined up against Anders’ hole, circling and spreading slick around but not penetrating, “I’m going to take that gag off, and I want to hear you beg. Remember that I don’t ever ask for anything twice.”

Hawke moved to unbuckle the gag with one hand, lifting the leather slowly away, the buckle sliding out without catching on his hair. That was very considerate of him, Anders thought faintly, as the gold plated metal ball slipped out of his mouth and Hawke wiped at the corner with a thumb, smelling lightly musky with a sweet herbal scent of whatever he used for slick.

There were no thoughts, no rebellion, no plight of mages or railing against injustice. He gaped at his own reflection, Hawke still nudging at his entrance, teasing, and all he could think of was the feeling of it in his mouth, in his throat, the taste of salt and feel of velvety skin on his tongue. He had no words.

Hawke met him in the mirror, a curious look in his eyes. He shifted, shaft sliding along under him instead, brushing against his opening on every stroke. His hands teased at Anders’ nipples, just the lightest of touches, brushing with the sides of his thumbs. Anders watched as they trailed downwards, over the dusting of hair on his abdomen.

“Any time now,” Hawke whispered, the very spirit of restraint, with just a taste of desperation in the breath he took right after, stuttering in Anders’ ear.

And Anders remembered his instruction, the need coming out of his mouth in a stream of pleading sounds, loud enough to surprise them both. “Please, I need your cock. Please, please, please, fill me up, give it to me please -”

"I guess I did promise to fill you up if you were good," Hawke breathed into the back of his ear darkly, sounding about ready to lose control himself, before drawing Anders’ earlobe into his mouth while he pushed his cock into Anders one agonizing fraction of an inch at a time.

Anders watched the crown disappear into him, heat and stretch and an overall feeling of fullness, fascinated by his own reflection. Hawke’s chin digging into his shoulder, slight crease appearing in between his eyes in concentration, always holding back.

For such a large man, he was extraordinarily gentle. Anders wondered if he ever accidentally hurt anyone, as a young man with too much strength and not enough finesse.

He certainly had finesse now, hands stroking up the insides of Anders’ thighs, pushing in, then keeping still, keeping him open, waiting for his muscles to allow the intrusion. Anders felt impatient as he was always impatient. He’d wanted it since last night, he’d wanted it since this morning, fuzzy, non-fade dreams of Hawke’s big hands and his mouth that probably tasted of ashes and his cock that Anders knew tasted of salt and aged leather and musk. He pushed at his restraints, attempting to thrust downwards and take it in faster, but there was nothing to brace against, nothing but Hawke's hold on his hips that might as well have been made of stone.

“Still you fight me.” Hawke smiled into his neck, taking his time. Anders was still quietly pleading, soft whimpers escaping in between cries to the Maker, straining downward. He was full, impossibly, body and mind stretch to their limits, then emptied, Hawke pulling out so quickly he felt the loss as though part of himself was taken away.

Hawke was adding more slick, and again, Anders thought that it was very considerate of him but his mouth was spouting other things, fighting, “No, please, put it back in, why did you stop -”

Then he was filled again, this time quickly, in one stroke. Anders wailed, his thoughts turned to too much, impossible, and the chain - yes, that bit of metal stringing across his back was another chain, after all - that held his knees apart was being used as a handle to bring him closer to Hawke.

He felt Hawke's chiseled abdomen against his back, sliding on sweat that did not come of heat but with the pressure of so much willpower and restraint.

"By the time I'm done with you, you won't be able to walk for a week. People will wonder why you never sit down, and you won't heal it because," Hawke pulled out again, soft skin teasing at the rim, then pushed back in with one smooth motion that expertly stopped behind the pressure that was mounting inside of him, and rolled his hips, “you'll want a reminder.”

Anders wanted to retort, to say anything that refuted the inevitable but all that came out was, "harder, more, Hawke, more -" and Hawke obliged, no longer teasing, each stroke brushing by a place that made him quiver and tense but it wasn't enough, "touch me, please please please please-"

“You have to give in, Anders.” Hawke began fucking him with hard, fast, unforgiving thrusts that straddled the line between pleasure and pain, and all that came out of Anders now was a continuous cry while Hawke pounded into him mercilessly.

Just as Anders thought he couldn't possibly take it anymore, he was going to break, he was being split in half, he was dying of being drawn too tight and too close to the edge for much too long, Hawke slowed down and settled into practiced, shallow strokes. He touched Anders' shoulders, fingers ghosting along the fine hair on his arms, resting finally on his cuffs, “when are you going to understand that you are not in control?”

“Just fuck me, harder please, harder dammit!” Anders yelled, rattling his chains. Hawke slapped him once, hard on his ass with enough force for it to sting. Still he didn't stop pleading.

Then Hawke did the one thing Anders did not expect. He pulled out and backed away, “I need a drink.”

“No! You can't!” Anders felt the pressure ebbing away, his arousal backing off from the edge again.

“I can, and I will. And while I go get my flask, you will look into the mirror,” Hawke paused at the door leading back out into the bedroom, “and you will think.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone on the meme asked me about the setup, because it is kind of complicated, and it's hard to picture ... poetically.
> 
> This is actually the leather and chain version of a shibari setup - saw it in a club once and I just thought it was the sexiest thing in the world. I asked about it because I hadn't seen it anywhere else and they told me it was "inspired by the shibari."
> 
> Basically, there are three straps to each leg: Knee, upperthigh, buttocks, and a single chain that connect them across the back of each leg. four straps around the torso, connected in back by a chain (which you can't see if you're in it) The leg straps that goes under the buttocks are connected to the bottom abs strap, for weight. Think garter belt that hooks onto itself.
> 
> There's a suspension chain that's HUGE compared to all the little ones, that takes all of a body's weight. The back vertical chain connects to it. Each knee also gets a chain to connect to it to pull the knees up to chest level, then another chain is added between the abs and chest horizonally across the back, hooks onto the outside of the knees to keep them open. The dom can also pull on it for ... um, extra punishment. In this case, the wrists are also suspended about 3 inches from the top of the head, connecting to the BIG chain.
> 
> When a person is fully suspended in it, the weight would sit mostly on the butt straps. If he relaxes, the bottom part of the body will tilt forward because of the chains to the knees, and his back will curve.
> 
> I hope I didn't make it EVEN MORE complicated. When I finish this story, I might draw it.


	13. Defiant, as always

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anders learns the art of submission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Background music: DMB's Crash Into Me.  
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7in-9E3ImQ

At first, he was just … angry. At being denied. Anders spitefully stared down instead, but even that view gave him a full sight of his cock, hungry and hanging away from his body, the touch needed to bring him over withheld. He was left with nothing but what Hawke gave him. If his eyes were open – and he so hated being alone and in the dark – then he had to look at himself. And think.

He could stretch his arms up a little, but they were bound. If he truly strained himself, he could close his legs a bit at the expense of digging the chain stretched behind him into his back.

Then, since there was no Hawke here for him to fight against, he relaxed.

It was a visible change. The tension in his arms drained away; the leather on his upper thighs and his ass dug in, spreading him wider; he saw himself loosen, opening up in the mirror, became a receptacle – then he did see what Hawke saw. He looked as though he belonged here.

He had no needs. He had no control. He was an offering, prey to a wild beast, a feast laid out at banquet. Passive, receptive, made this way to be taken.

Hawke was there, leaning on the door frame, and Anders studied him through the mirror, tracing the edges of his muscles with his eyes. Hawke studied him right back, shark blue eyes of a predator tracking its prey. Anders twitched, harder even than before Hawke left, but he remained slack in his bonds.

In the mirror, Hawke smiled. The flask was tossed overhand, landing soundlessly on the rug, and the man was behind him and in him in seconds, and he didn't need time to adjust, because there was no tension or strain in him. He was here, in these chains, and Hawke was the one holding the chains.Anders tipped his head back, resting on Hawke's shoulder, moaning softly as he rode the waves of pleasure that crashed through him. He was loose, safe in these arms, safe in these chains. Hawke was here, giving him exactly what he needed. Hawke entering him and moving inside of him was every bit as pleasurable as the climax.

He was near the edge, he was on the edge, he was the edge, and it was timeless and unending. __

_Do you understand what you are, Anders?_

He body was the organ. In these chains, he wasn't just a display of sex. He was sex, and it felt wonderful.

Hawke didn't change his rhythm, or his angle, or gave him more stimulation by touching his cock. He simply said, “come for me.”

Anders felt the pressure in his groin as of something opening; not the sudden release that he had experienced last night, the hard and dirty orgasm that was the goal he worked towards; not the ones that came of quick fumbles in the dark in an abandoned hallway that led to some dusty old storeroom. It was an expansion of where he already was, lucid and wide-eyed, seeing the reflection of Hawke driving inside of him as he came.

Hawke was shushing him with a series of calming murmurs, one hand cradling his jaw while the other wrapped around him, idly fiddling with a buckle on one of his straps. His hips had stopped moving at some point, but Anders couldn't recall when. Hawke's eyes were closed in the mirror, stubbled chin by Ander's pulse, and in his vulnerable state he could think of nothing but this warm tight feeling in his chest he could not name.

His buckles were being opened one by one, first the ones on his legs so that he could stand again, Hawke supporting his weight by the waist with one arm, then the ones wound around his torso and his chest, leaving the reddened impressions of them behind. Hawke pulled out of him, and they both groaned, though Hawke's was more of a quiet grunt, and Anders was once again struck with the lack of reaction. The man was a master of invoking emotions in other people, but it seemed as though he had none of his own.

He was being turned around, and the chain above him unhooked. Anders was adrift, suddenly, without an anchor. He draped his arms over Hawke, resting them on his shoulders, hands still linked together by the cuffs. A brief flicker of surprise flitted over Hawke's eyes, and Anders found himself pressed against the mirror, cold against his back, while Hawke's broad chest was pressed against his own, trapping him.

His knees were lifted up, and Hawke was pushing inside him again, wide and hard and unyielding.

Anders was staring, like in their first meeting – only yesterday – when Hawke was lost in his own world, a self-contained well of gravity that needed nothing outside of his circle to sustain him. This close, he could see the faint, thin scars on his jaw, and the lighter tips of his eyelashes. His eyes were closed, lips pursed a little Anders studied his breathing, each exhale a little heavier than the last.

Their position was strangely intimate, yet less of them were touching than when Hawke was behind him, hot flesh against his back. He watched as Hawke's lips parted and his thrusts became irregular, and he was overcame with an impulse to feel what Hawke felt, to get inside him the way he was inside Anders.

Anders threw himself forward and kissed him.

Hawke's mouth quivered as he came, losing control in a way that Anders wouldn't have been able to notice if he wasn't pressed to his lips. There was the indistinct breath of a moan, sharp exhalation of breath against his tongue as Anders probed inside his mouth. He expected Hawke to push him away afterwards, perhaps punishing him for the infraction, but that thought didn't exactly act as a deterrent.

He tasted elfroot in his mouth, and deathroot, a bitter, sharp taste on the tongue, and distantly, a hint of death and decay from corrupter agent. When he withdrew, there was the metallic aftertaste of lyrium, lingering and numbing his senses. Not the energetic powder that left his senses singing, but the draining, sapping feeling of -

“...magebane,” the mouth that was kissing him back – yes, Hawke was kissing him back – stilled, and shark blue eyes bored into his skull.


	14. None of Us Are Free

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Anders fears for his life, and Hawke and Fenris shares a drink between friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Background music: 30 Seconds to Mars' Hurricane.
> 
> (This vid is not safe for work, but then again, neither is this fic. Heh.)
> 
> http://vimeo.com/28623696

“You shouldn't have done that,” Hawke said, resting his forehead on Anders' own. He laughed, a bitter, brittle sound that reminded Anders of dried leaves crushed underfoot. He rubbed at the side of his head, a crease appearing in between his eyebrows. He looked much older suddenly; someone forced to unsavory ends too many times over what little years he had. He added, shaking his head, “and you were doing so well.”

All the warmth had drained out of his voice. Anders bit at his lower lip, a little hurt over the reprimand. As long as he endeared himself to Hawke, he stood a chance of leaving this place alive, and what he did here was – different, dangerous, mind-altering – unlike anything he had ever experienced before.

But now, whatever they had shared didn't change a thing. Anders just unwittingly found Hawke out.

He was a mage.

Mages created little disturbances in the fade that templars could sense, as easily as anyone could see ripples in a pond. This was a side effect of constantly drawing mana. Each mage was a portal to the fade. There was no hiding it.

Unless one was to ingest magebane regularly, of course. Hawke was putting it in his cigarettes, adding elfroot to the mixture to numb the pain that came with it. Most people wouldn't know what lyrium taste or smell like, but Anders was a Circle-trained herbalist.

His mind was spinning. Maybe he could pretend he didn't know why Hawke was smoking magebane. Maybe he was addicted to corrupted lyrium – totally unheard of, but he was willing to grasp at straws at this point – or he was experimenting on himself, since it had no effect whatsoever on a non-mage.

Hawke lifted Anders' arms away from his neck, and as soon as his feet hit the ground, he realized that there was less strength in his legs now than when Hawke took him out of his restraint bars this morning. His legs refused to support him and he slid along the mirror onto the floor, wincing a little at the coldness of the tiles.

“Come on,” Hawke tugged at his chain. When Anders didn't move to get up, he sighed and scooped him up under his shoulders and knees.

“Are you going to kill me?” Anders asked. The arms tightened around him for a second; Hawke's chest rising just a tad too much for a regular, shallow breath.

“No.”

The chain trailed behind them, rattling along the tiles, then the rug, and into the bathroom, and for a while that was all the sound in the room, neither of them uttering a word. Anders leaned into Hawke, finding temporary succor in that broad, warm chest, closing his eyes.

His back hit water so hot that it was scalding, and when he winced and tried to move away, Hawke held him, “you'll be able to walk when you get out. I'm going to go get us some food.” He pointed in the direction of the water basin, “there's a razor and other things you might want in that cabinet.”

Hawke stepped out without looking back, absentmindedly locking the end of the chain into a niche as he went. He picked up his clothes at the end of the bed and began dressing. Silk shirt, leather breeches. He considered the doublet, and left it. He needed to breathe.

His hands waited until he was outside the apartment, having slid the lock into place, to begin to shake.

Outside of family, Fenris was the only one who knew. He made the confession more than a year ago now, when he asked the elf to work for him. When Fenris snarled at him and asked why he would ever work for a magister, with a hand ready to pull his heart out for lying to him in the months they'd known one another, he simply held the elf's gaze and said, “I need a fail-safe.”

His magic manifested at twenty-two. Their father was dead, and Bethany, having shown her magic at four, was already trained in the primals by the time her brother started losing control over his connection to the fade. She tried her best to help; she guarded Hawke in his dreams and taught him some of the basic spells she knew, but he was rubbish at it. If he had been in the circle, he probably would have failed his harrowing or not been considered for a harrowing at all.

Ever dependent on his skill as a swordsman, Hawke never needed magic. It was unwelcome and it filled his dreams with demon whispers.First thing he tried was just magebane. Since the Chantry board carried bounties for hunting down apostates, Carver took a copy of the job and bought the magebane for him.

It hurt in an internal, soul scorching way. He felt numb, probably like how a Tranquil would have felt. Physically, it seared his veins and gave him migraines. So he started fiddling with the formulations, using his father's old herbalism journals as a guide. Eventually he settled on elfroot for the pain and deathroot for the numbness, with tobacco to mask the smell.

The migraines never truly went away. There was the constant background noise that he couldn't completely block out, and over the years he developed a tolerance for that constant hangover he got each morning.

His feet took him to his office, where he settled in his chair and poured himself two shots of whiskey. It was before noon, but frankly, he didn't care. He downed it in one go, nevermind that the stuff cost at least three sovereigns a shot and burned his throat. It was stuff. He didn't need stuff and he didn't want stuff and he was surrounded by stuff. Shit he never wanted.

His eyes landed on the tumbler in his hand, and he imagined himself crushing it, letting the glass cut into his hand so that he could feel something, not the numbness that invaded his head. But if he did, then he'd need magic to heal it. He'd have to go over to the gallows, where he would have to see Bethany, and Bethany would know right away that he was in the bottom of a bottle again.

“Fuck,” Hawke picked up the tumbler and threw it across the room. It smashed against the door frame where it shattered, missing Fenris by an inch. The elf stared at him, wide-eyed and inquisitive and not angry, and Hawke wondered how in the world it came to be that he was angry and Fenris wasn't.

“I thought you were on vacation,” Fenris parroted his words from the day before, eyebrow lifted in amusement.

“Something came up.”

“I highly doubt that. We hadn't sent you any messages,” Fenris sat down in the awkward visitor's chair and somehow made it look graceful. “It's the mage, isn't it?”

“He knows,” Hawke rubbed at his face with his hands.

“What do you propose?”

“What do I always do when people find out?” He gave Fenris a wistful little smile that was closer to a grimace.

“You kill them,” then, because it was always an option and Fenris being the only example, “or you hire them.”

Hawke laughed, “I trust you. I met him yesterday.”

“But regardless, you have reservations about killing him.”

“I gave Varric my word,” Hawke said. He built his reputation on it.

“That never stopped you before.”

Sure. He told Varric that he would neither kill nor maim the mage, but that wouldn't stop an accident from happening to him on his walk from the mansion to his clinic in darktown, “true enough.”

“You know, it's all right to admit you want something once in a while,” Fenris said, and his tone was concerned. Business besides, they were the best of friends, magical nature notwithstanding.

Hawke was touched, but some things were bigger than him and what he wanted, “I want to keep my family safe, Fenris. That includes you.”

“How do you want this to happen?”

“I'll let him go,” Hawke said. “You make it quick and you make it painless.”

“And you're sure he'll want to leave? With all the drugs you pumped into him?”

Hawke didn't say anything. He just gave Fenris a look and the barest hint of a smirk.

“You didn't give him the orichalcum,” Fenris quirked an eyebrow.

“Not today, no. Just regular painfree magebane,” the fade beckoned, and Hawke lit a cigarette with it, flick of a wrist. “If I tell him he can go, he'll go. From what I know of him, he's a runner.”

Fenris poured Hawke and himself each a shot of whiskey, into new tumblers that he hoped would stay intact. They drank in silence, sipping the drink and Hawke enjoying it this time since there was a point now that he wasn't alone. Fenris said, at length, “sometimes I wonder if you're not more of a slave than I was.”

Hawke laughed into his drink, a single syllable sound that could have been a sob, but it couldn't have been because Hawke just wasn't the kind of man to show weakness in anything, “oh, I don't wonder, my friend. I know.”


	15. What Goes with Aggregio Pavali?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hawke serves Anders his last meal.

Anders hadn't been able to shave properly since he was in Amaranthine. He got used to the scruffy apostate look – people on the run couldn't afford time to spend on vanity. The straight razor in the cabinet was newly sharpened and the shaving soap was scented with sandalwood, next to the matching aftershave and a brush made of some sort of soft animal hair.

He shaved slowly, meticulously, and he wondered if he was going to die very soon.

Perhaps Hawke was figuring out a way to dispose of him quietly. He seemed like a man of his word, but Anders wasn't stupid; Hawke said he wasn't going to kill Anders himself, but that wouldn't stop that creepy phasing elf from ripping his heart out.

There was only so much time one could stall in a bathroom, however. Eventually he would have had to come out. Maybe that elf was on the other side of the door. Anders came up with a dozen different scenarios in his head, each more horrible than the last, when he finally decided enough was enough. If he was going to die, he was at least going to die defiant.

So when he opened the door to Hawke walking in with a huge tray of food, he was completely unprepared. Hawke smiled at him, placing the food near the foot of the bed.

“Your hair's dripping,” he commented, picking up a skewer with a slice of apple with pastry baked around it – apple pie on a stick, how clever – and he held it in front of Anders' mouth. “Go on. I remember you mentioning that you like pie.”

Anders thought about picking it up with his hands. He could do at least that much, but it didn't look like what Hawke was looking for. He opened his mouth and pulled the apple slice off the skewer, Hawke staring at his mouth all the while. It was still warm from the oven.

Hawke stepped around him, into the bathroom, and picked up a towel. He began drying Anders' hair, “my mother says that if you don't dry your hair properly, you'll catch a head cold.”

“That's non-sense,” said Anders, slightly flabbergasted with the sudden change in Hawke's attitude. The last time he saw Hawke, he was on the edge of anger, perhaps somewhere between anger and indifference. Now he was more than civil. Hawke was attentive.

Once his hair was deemed to have been toweled properly, Hawke unlocked his chain and led him to the bed, attaching it to a ring in the middle top rail. After settling Anders into a spot in the middle of the bed, facing the foot board, he gestured at the food.

It was quite a spread, and Anders was ravenous. There were fruits, some so exotic that he had never seen them before, little pastries with sausages in them, roasted peppers blackened with spice, and such a variety of cheeses as to be absurd. There was a small, fresh roll already cut into half with butter slathered and melted into it, steaming hot, and Anders wondered if Hawke prepared the food himself, cutting up everything into bite-sized pieces in the kitchen. His imagination supplied an apron and he had to suppress his urge to laugh out loud at his own private joke.

Behind him, Hawke opened a bottle of wine and was in the process of transferring it to a decanter. “Fenris wanted you to have this.”

“Is it poisoned?” Anders asked, not quite jokingly. He turned his head to look at the decanter. Rough glass, likely Tevinter in origin, holding a clear liquid.

“I hope not,” Hawke poured a full glass, then he took a sip of it while Anders was looking. “Aggregio Pavali. I have no idea which kind of cheese it goes with so I just cut up a bit of everything.”

“Don't you have servants for that sort of thing?” Anders asked, the visual of Hawke in an apron popping up again.

“In my house, yes. This isn't my house.” Hawke moved to sit behind him. Anders was sitting on his heels, and Hawke wrapped himself around him, knees on either side, the glass of wine he was holding at Anders' lips, “drink.”

Kinloch Hold, where the Chantry housed the Ferelden Circle, always had very good wine at the dining table; Tranquil were masters of everything alchemical. There wasn't much difference between preparing a good potion and a good wine or a good ale. This, however, was better than anything Anders had ever tasted. It was sweet, like the winter wines from Ferelden, and perhaps just a little too alcoholic for an empty stomach. He didn't mind though. Anders had a sweet tooth.

Hawke was wearing something smooth and silky that slid along Anders' back as he moved, so thin that he might as well have been naked. He had one arm hooked around Anders' waist.

Anders stopped at one sip and started eyeing the food. He tugged at the chain; his hands were too far off the bed, and the food was placed just barely out of reach. Hawke had moved once Anders stopped drinking. He sat, reclining on a mountain of pillows by the headboard.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Hawke sipped at the wine, wincing a little at how sweet it was. He never understood Fenris' fixation with this particular wine. The grapes were too sweet in Tevinter, so the wine was too sweet, and it went with absolutely nothing they ate in the Free Marches. He placed the glass on the side table next to the decanter. “Aren't you hungry?”

Anders was famished. Hawke obviously knew that his chains prevented him from reaching the food, and he was asking Anders to figure something out, but what? He didn't want to sound stupid by asking.

A rough hand touched his lower back with just the tiniest bit of pressure, signalling him to move down. Oh.

_Oh_.

Anders placed his joined hands behind his head and heard an approving hum from behind him. From there, he leaned forwards until his elbows came to rest on the surface of the bed. He was sitting on his heels before with his knees apart; so now with his shoulders closer to the bed, he arched his back, giving Hawke a full view, including what was quickly hardening between his legs from Hawke's scrutiny.

He tried to concentrate on the food; Anders hadn't exactly had a good time in darktown when it came to creature comforts, but each mouthful was a reminder that someone was very pointedly not touching him.

It should have felt degrading to be forced to eat like this, but Hawke's presence made it erotic and exciting, as though he was being admired. He could picture Hawke sitting on a lounger with a glass of wine, making a toast to a painting. If that was the comparison, Anders didn't much mind being the painting.

By the time he started on the dessert, little pieces of fruit wrapped in pastry and baked like pies on skewers, he was painfully hard and dripping precome onto the bedsheets. Hawke reached over and picked up the sugary treats for him, pulling each skewer away as Anders took the morsels into his mouth. He stroked the back of one of Anders' legs idly, running his fingers up the back of an ankle.

Hawke brought the wineglass to Anders' lips again, and this time he drank in a little more, but his position and the lack of tolerance – Justice didn't let him get drunk – made his head spin. Anders started moving his arms back over his head, but Hawke stopped him, pushing on his cuffs and held him down, “stay there.”

“What are you doing?” Anders asked, as he felt a cool liquid run down from the base of his spine towards his shoulders, then some more running down the back of his thighs, pooling in the hollows of his knees.

“Hold still,” Hawke said, placing one large hand over the space between his shoulder blades. He began lapping up from the base of Anders' spine in long licks with the flat of his tongue, drinking up the liquid pooling in the small of his back.

Hawke was drinking wine off Anders. He almost came from that thought alone, his erection twitching under him. With slow, languid licks and little sucking motions with his mouth where the wine pooled, Hawke was caressing him with his tongue and lips, following the lines the liquid drew on his body in thin rivulets of sugary wine.

Anders held his position, trying to keep quiet, but the sounds escaped anyhow; little moans as Hawke's tongue drew circles over one hip bone, a cry when he sucked at the line between buttock and thigh. Then Hawke was moving lower, lapping at the wine pooled in the backs of his knees. He had never known how sensitive that spot was before, but when Hawke closed his mouth over the skin and sealed his lips around it, swiping his tongue over the hollow, Anders bucked, spilling wine on to the sheets.

“Oh, look what you did,” Hawke huffed out into the back of one knee, sounding slightly exasperated. Anders shivered, already thinking of the punishment he was to receive, but instead, he felt a shock of coolness running down his cock, mixing with the salty fluid already collected there at the tip. A tickling sensation signaled the droplets of wine slowly dripping off the crown.

Fine hair brushed against his thigh, maddeningly close to his sac, and silky fabric touched his thighs. Anders lost his sense of orientation; how Hawke was touching him felt all wrong suddenly, a hand touching his hip had a thumb on the wrong side. Then it dawned on him that Hawke had slid underneath him. Something rough and wet dragged a line up his cock, lips closing around the tip drinking in the mixture of liquids collecting there.

Heat enveloped him as Hawke slid Anders into his throat in one go, and he shuddered, straining to stop himself from coming in the tightness. As if sensing how close to the edge Anders was, Hawke backed off and licked at the tip again, circling his tongue over the ridge and licking around the base alternately. More wine; he felt the cold lip of the glass placed above his hole, then a controlled trickle running down into him and over his sac, finally flowing down his erection. Hawke remained beneath him, tongue moving constantly, catching the droplets as they came.

He was making appreciative humming noises that set Anders' nerves ablaze. Anders imagined the taste of it, the salt of precome providing a counterpoint to the overly sweet wine, a contrast of flavours on the tongue. He began to whimper, begging for Hawke to take him, to just stop the teasing already and get on with it. He was already so close he felt about ready to burst.

Hawke wasn't done with Anders yet. He wrapped his mouth around the shaft, bottom lip tipped a little away to allow the wine to trickle into his mouth, and continued to drink the sweet liquid through Anders, allowing it to pool on his tongue, letting it surround the flesh he held between his lips.

Rough fingertips brushed against his entrance, and Anders pushed his hips a little towards it, silently pleading for more. It wasn't gentle or even smooth when Hawke thrust two fingers into him, wine too thin to act as a lubricant, but Hawke crooked them towards his own mouth, linking the two sensations, and Anders just couldn't hold it in anymore. He didn't call out a warning, but Hawke knew anyway, swallowing the white, ropey discharge along with the wine he held in his mouth, pouring more of it down beneath the fingers he had inside Anders, using the taste of him as a wine pairing.

Anders couldn't help the involuntary thrusting against Hawke's mouth by then, but the fingers inside him encouraged his movements, manipulating him like a puppet from the inside out until he was shuddering and cringing away from oversensitivity.

Hawke slid out from under him, still holding a wine glass. His shirt was ruined, the thin silk matting to his chest, “I think I just discovered what Aggregio Pavali goes with.”

Anders let out a soft giggle that came out like a contented purr. He tried to sit up again but his limbs were heavy, the wine he drank earlier making him dizzy, and he felt sated beyond measure. Hawke wrapped an arm around his waist, pulling him up and drawing Anders against his chest.

His silk shirt was soaked with wine, clinging to his skin, the heat of his body seeping through the wet fabric. Hawke drew back momentarily and tongued his way up Anders' spine, licking up what little wine that was left there, ending in a bite on the side of his neck that he soothed with a kiss, finally resting his chin on Anders' shoulder.

He could feel Hawke hard against his back, tenting the leather breeches he wore. Anders kept expecting the hands holding him to start fondling him, rousing him again so he could be used and taken, but Hawke simply held him in a tight but controlled embrace that made him feel somehow precious, as though Hawke was afraid of crushing Anders in his arms.

Anders wanted to ask him what was wrong, but it was out of the scope of what they were, and he wasn't even sure what they were. Between them now was an air of intimacy that was palpable and fragile, and for once he didn't want to run his mouth and ruin it. Hawke touched his fingers to Anders' forehead, then down to his cheeks, testing his temperature.

“Your cheeks are burning,” Hawke said, running his thumb up and down Anders' jaw. “When was the last time you drank?”

“I'll have you know,” Anders started, remembering his youthful bravado, leaning back into that broad chest. “I used to drink dwarves under the table.”

Hawke smiled into his neck, “Did you really?”

“I threatened to drink them under the table, anyhow.”

Hawke's shoulders were shaking, presumably from laughing at him. He felt movement along his back, Hawke stretching up to reach for something, then his chains were taken down from the top rail of the bed, piling in a bundle next to them. He pulled Anders towards the head board, arranging them comfortably among the pillows. Anders felt drowsy; the combination of food, alcohol, and lack of sleep catching up to him finally over that last shuddering orgasm.

“Take a nap. I can't imagine you slept well last night,” Hawke pulled the blond man to lie on top of him, looping Anders' linked wrists over his neck. Anders had his ear on Hawke's chest, and he listened to Hawke's heartbeat over that thin shirt, the smell of too-sweet wine and smoke strangely comforting.

“And whose fault is that?” Anders mumbled, already half asleep. Hawke didn't answer him, except with gentle movements of his hands over Anders' hair, working out the knots in his still-wet strands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I came to the decision that wine (and the grapes) in Tevinter was sweet on account of the climate of Thedas. Probably Southern hemisphere, but probably not anywhere near Australia, if it was on earth. Closer to South Africa, but way down south so that one would get snow in Ostagar, but lots of rain, like Britain, when it didn't snow. But it's not realistic, because the climates are very diverse for something that fits inside the isle of Britain.
> 
> I settled on white, sweet wine, because the ancient Romans drank white, sweet wine, even when the grapes were red. I had a mental image of Fenris, peeling grapes with his spikey gauntlets. So when Fenris said the wine were made with the tears and blood of slaves, he might have very well meant that literally.
> 
> Then, to decant or not to decant? Well, one would NOT decant new white wine, but the rules change for anything that can be aged 10 years and over, which is rare. We have no idea how old the Aggregio in Fenris' mansion is, but by the notch in this timeline it would have been anywhere from 2 to 10 to ? years old. And decanters are sexy. 
> 
> Okay, so I just went with "and decanters are sexy" in the end.


	16. What Friends Are For

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fenris does something unexpected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to watch this again.
> 
> [30 Seconds to Mars' Hurricane.](http://vimeo.com/28623696)
> 
> [Lyrics](http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/30secondstomars/hurricane.html)

Hawke waited in silence, hands wrapped around the man he kidnapped the day before. Anders had so many faces, and now he saw that the mage was smiling in his sleep, in his arms. Hawke had never met anyone like Anders. He was like an abused kitten; first he snarled and bit, then as soon as he was shown a shred of kindness, he latched on and gave his trust completely.

This morning he told Anders that if he wanted to keep him chained up here, he would. But Hawke recognized that a man like Anders needed his freedom, and keeping him here would be worse than death for him. After that show of defiance right when he thought the mage had submitted, Hawke could be sure that Anders was so resiliant as to be unbreakable. There was no way for him to threaten or coerce him into keeping Hawke's secrets for him forever.

His arms tightened around the mage, and Anders let out a little whine, like a cat stretching in its sleep.

Hawke really didn't want to do this. Anders was so naïve, somehow. After all the things he said he went through, he was still able to trust people. It was something that Hawke could never have done himself, and he found it infinitely fascinating, the many facets of this man – the wanton faces he showed in acts of intimacy, the defiance and the hidden rage, the boundless compassion in him that drove him to selfless acts of kindness – was surprisingly addictive. Hawke was hit with an impulse to know them all.

He wanted to wake up every morning with something to look forward to, like this morning.

He wanted someone he trusted enough to fall asleep next to.

He also wanted to keep the templars well away from his door unless they were there for business, fully convinced that he wasn't a mage.

He wanted to keep the twins and his mother safe. He wanted respite from this crazy town and people with their myriad problems for him to solve, winning him connections enough to keep everyone around him happy.

People who ruled by fear did not love.

He was alone. He was content. 

If that was true, what was this tightness that made it hard to breathe? Was it grief? Did he allow himself so much attachment over this mage that he felt sorry about letting him die? He had only questions. He wondered if Anders would know; Anders with his straightforward emotions and instincts that gave him a smile while he slept in the arms of the most dangerous man in Kirkwall.

It was at least an hour later that Fenris came in carrying a set of clothes and Anders' feathered coat. Silently, he handed Hawke a key and left. Hawke knew that he was just outside, waiting for Anders to leave the room.

“Anders, wake up,” he said, softly, not really wanting him to stir. Anders did anyway, his lifetime of escaping and sleeping in the woods with templars on his heels making him a very light sleeper. Hawke showed him the key.

“...What,” Anders yawned, eyes half open.

'You're going home.”

That startled him, “why?”

“What do you mean, why?” Hawke wanted to add _do you have no sense of self-preservation whatsoever,_ but considering that he was an apostate mage running a free clinic in Kirkwall of all places, where there were more templars than anywhere else in Thedas, the answer went without saying. He reached an arm behind his neck and unlocked the cuffs, “your clothes are over there. Fenris will escort you home.”

Expressions came and went on Anders' face so fast that Hawke had trouble cataloguing them. First, his eyes went large as saucers like a kicked puppy; then his eyebrows came together and his eyes narrowed in indignation; and then a blank face he tried to throw on top of it all, assuring Hawke that he made a terrible Wicked Grace player.

“I can just go,” Anders said, looking slightly puzzled.

Hawke pushed the mage off his lap, “leave.”

“You can't just -” and Anders paused mid-sentence, not knowing what to add to that. He began the thought with _you can't just fuck me like that and pretend nothing happened_ , or _you don't treat a person like that if you have no feelings for them,_ but all of the options he came up with made him sound like a whiny, clingy wretch. So he finished off, lamely, “you can't just use people like that.”

“Don't tell me,” Hawke snarled, in a voice reserved for subordinates, flashing his glare for effect, “what I can and can't do. If I tell you I'm done with you, I'm fucking done with you. Now get out of my sight.”

That seemed to convince Anders, who stared at Hawke with a mixture of hurt and disbelief. He got up and started pulling on his clothes, turning his back on the man in that ruined silk shirt. Anders didn't look backwards once; buckling up the last strap on the front of his coat, he walked right out the door and straight into Fenris.

The elf backed up a step, holding out a black bag, “put this over your head.”

“Why?” Anders eyed it suspiciously.

“If we allow people to just come in here and leave at will, it wouldn't be much of a secret cellar.”

Anders acquiesced and pulled the bag over his head. Fenris tightened the straps, the bottom of the bag closing over the space beneath his jaw, preventing him from even looking at his own feet. He pushed a length of rope into Anders' hands, “just follow me. I'll alert you of any obstacles or stairs.”

They walked in silence for a while, over corridors and up and down at least four flights of stairs. Occasionally, Fenris asked him to spin around a few times, causing him to lose his orientation completely.

Anders could not abide the silence for long, “your boss is an arsehole.”

“Oh?” Fenris' voice sounded in front of him, inquisitive.

“Does he do this a lot? Kidnap random people, fuck them and throw them out?”

There was a pause so long that Anders thought he was being ignored, then Fenris simply said, “no.”

“What do you mean, no?”

“Did you hear what I said, mage? He does't do those things,” Fenrs pulled on his rope a little sideways, avoiding a box a foot high to his left, “watch your step.”

“What? He doesn't kidnap random people, or he doesn't fuck people, or he doesn't throw them out?”

“He does _none_ of those things,” the elf said emphatically.

Hawke's kidnappings were never 'random,' the only person he took to his bed on occasion was Isabela, and people who went into the cellars either ended up in the incinerator or they walked out on their own, brain-dead on account of lyrium withdrawal.

“Well, I don't know how you can work for him. He's rude, and domineering, egotistical ...”

“Enough!” Fenris barked, louder and angrier than the cold, calm man he met the day before. “Hawke is abrasive, but he is a good man. I will not listen to your insults any longer.”

Anders didn't stay quiet for long, threat or no threat, “why do you work for him?”

Fenris paused, again so long that Anders thought he wasn't going to answer at all. Then he said, “Hawke is … a good friend.”

“Um, care to elaborate?”

“Excuse me?”

“Explain?”

“When he bought the mansion,” Fenris began, and Anders thought, _finally_ , “the Seneschal didn't include the wine that came with the cellar into the asking price. It was worth more than what he paid for the mansion – if he simply sold it, he would have made the money back and more besides. But since I already expressed an interest in the wine when I lived here, he gifted it to me.”

Anders didn't know what to say to that, and they walked in silence for a while. He got out, finally, “how generous of him.”

“The more important something – or someone – is to him, the more disagreeable he gets. He gets … nervous,” then Fenris said, as an afterthought, with a hint of amusement in his voice, “and downright cowardly.”

Anders was beginning to suspect that he was walking in circles as he stepped over what seemed like the fourth one-foot high box at the same angle. He estimated that they had been waking steadily for at least an hour. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you're blind.”

“I have a black bag over my head,” Anders said, then chuckled at his own joke.

Fenris ignored him, “he has saved my life many times over, he has done things for me that I did not even ask for. I have since learned that what Hawke says has nothing to do with what he means.”

“Wait a minute.” Anders stopped walking, and he twisted the rope in his hand a little, “you're trying to convince me to go back to him.”

There was no answer.

“Fenris?” Anders called, uncertain of what to do. After a few more minutes of waiting for the air to talk back, he loosened the string on the bag and took it off.

He was back outside that apartment. Fenris was gone. On the floor placed right by his boots was a tiny vial of lyrium potion.

The door in front of him was closed, but it wasn't locked. There were three different courses of action he could take: lock the door and leave, wait for the elf to come back, or go inside. One and two weren't really options, since he didn't know the way out and Fenris obviously wanted him back here.

He knocked lightly, then pushed the door open. It was pitch black inside. All the candles had been put out since he left.

A glass bottle flew by the side of his head, hitting the door opposite and bouncing off the floor. Anders didn't know that glass bounced, but apparently the really thick stuff was indestructable.

“Fuck off, Fenris. You're the last person I want to see right now,” Hawke's voice called out from the direction of the bed, followed by a hiccup. “Argh. My head hurts.”

Anders picked up the bottle and took a whiff. He wasn't familiar with the smells of distilled spirits, but whatever this was, it toed the line between whiskey and moonshine, probably closer to the latter than the former. It looked like it probably held around forty ounces.

If someone the size of Anders drank forty ounces of whiskey, he would have been quite dead. Hawke, that monster of a man, was probably only highly intoxicated. Well, that explained why the bottle missed him.

“It's me,” Anders pushed the door wide open, letting the torchlight from the hallway stream into the room. Hawke immediately threw his hands up to shield his eyes. _So much for light_ , thought Anders, and he closed the door behind him.

“You're dead,” Hawke said, sounding half dead himself. So, Hawke did send him off to face his death after all. Anders turned to leave, but an incongruous bit of logic kept him. Hawke thought he was dead, and so he sat alone, in the dark, in a room full of ghosts, drinking enough alcohol to kill a normal-sized grown man.

“I'm obviously not,” Anders countered.

“Are you calling me a liar?” Hawke slurred at him, and Anders wondered why he came back. The man was caustic. Rude and egotistical and beautiful and a firecracker in bed. Anders wasn't sure which part of his brain supplied the last two descriptions, but the image was in his head now, the memory of Hawke in the mirror wearing nothing and looking comfortable in his skin, drinking.

He took the lyrium potion that Fenris left him out of his pocket and downed it in one go. The magic came back all at once, static dancing over his skin, and he conjured a few wisps for light, barely enough to see, but not enough to trigger a migraine.  


Justice clamoured for control, and Anders held him back, assuring the spirit that there were no immediate threats and whatever he picked up in Anders' memories of the events since yesterday, it was perfectly concensual.

Well, it wasn't exactly, but Justice had a library of other acts in their shared mind to contemplate.

Hawke could see him now, cast in the azure light of magic, and he seemed at last convinced that Anders was truly still alive. His first reaction was to drive the mage away again, “didn't I tell you to leave? Are you daft? I said I don't want you. Fuck off.”

“I heard you,” Anders climbed onto the bed; it was still wet here and there from wine, soaking through to his knees through the thin linen fabric of his pants. Hawke still had on that silk shirt with a wet patch in the front, and the dark spots of his nipples showed through, with those tight leather breeches. Anders clambered on to him, stradling his hips, and rubbed their groins together experimentally. Hawke clenched his teeth and glared, while Anders licked his lips, “I heard you. But I don't believe a word of it.”

“You don't -” and Anders cut him off, pressing his lips to Hawke's mouth. He was tired of the words, inconsequential words, designed to wound and push away anyone and anything that might get close enough to see the cracks in his mask.

Hawke reeked of alcohol, in the way that only someone who drank to get drunk could smell. Perhaps the smoking became just another cover of a cover; functional alcoholics always smelled like something: aftershave, scented oils, anything to throw people off the scent. Anders thought he smelled like cigarettes and booze the day before; now there was nothing left but booze.

He kissed Hawke desperately, moaning into his mouth, as one breathing life into a dead man. It was like kissing a wall, initially; Hawke refused to reciprocate. He noted, however, that Hawke wasn't pushing him away, and he could feel the man beneath him growing hard in his breeches.

It was time to resort to dirty tricks. Anders ran his hands down along Hawke's sides to his hips, hands brushing across the pointy jut of a pelvic bone. Then he did something that made him memorable on his many ecapes. He channeled a current from one thumb to another, so low as to barely noticeable except as a sudden jolt of arousal. He rolled his hips once more, disguising the spell as simple biology.

Hawke rewarded his efforts with a low moan, barely audible, but Anders was listening and looking for an opening and he was delighted to have found one. He swiped his tongue across Hawke's lower lip, seeking entry, while another jolt danced across his thumbs and he thrust his hips forwards, sliding their erections next to one another, the leather wrapped tight around Hawke like a second skin, slipping against the linen Anders wore. Eventually, as the heat between them built to scorching, with friction or otherwise, his mouth opened beneath Anders', tilting his head to allow him entrance.

With Hawke beneath him like this, pliant and willing, and he thought indolently, submissive, Anders wasn't going to last long at all. It was one thing to be overpowered and taken; that had its own appeal, but having someone so strong, and with such an overbearing personality, writhing beneath him, gave him such a rush as to make his scalp tingle.

Anders thrust his tongue between Hawke's teeth, coaxing his tongue out of him, pleading for passion, emotion, anything, all the while moving his hips against Hawke. His moans came out of him easily, as Anders was always shameless in bed and felt no need to hide what came naturally. When Hawke started kissing him back, scraping his teeth over Anders' lower lip, moving to his jaw and mouthing at his neck, the pressure became too much to bear. He slid his erection against Hawke one last time, and came hard over the triumph of it, each little reaction he got out of the unemotional man a tiny victory.

He rode out his climax loudly in Hawke's ear, rutting against his groin, panting hard into the pillows. When he could breathe again, Anders looked down, hoping to see something resembling want in those eyes, and came to a dreadful conclusion.

Hawke was asleep. He probably passed out a few minutes ago, sometime while he was busy coming in his pants. _That was embarassing_ , he thought, then added silently to himself, _at least he won't remember it_.

Anders sighed, sliding down to lay on Hawke's chest. His hand came to rest on the bed on something cold and metallic.

It was a chain, _the_ chain, and those cuffs that held his own wrists until an hour ago. There was a key still in it. He turned his head and his stubble rasped across that ruined, wrinkled silk shirt.

Anders had an idea.


	17. Prelude to the Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hawke offers Anders a challenge.

Hawke woke to the smell of summer rain. A childhood memory, if he could have called that a childhood at all, of training Carver in the woods near their home in Highever, their father off with Bethany somewhere on one of their secretive trips. He raised his head to the heavens, drinking in the fresh water, and Carver whacked him on the arm with his training sword while he wasn't looking. That boy was such a tit – some things stayed the same.

He used to fear for the mages after they were gone for more than a day, imagining the worst. Hawke hated not knowing. When they were gone they were both alive and dead, a limbo in his world, an certainty.

A weakness.

Summer rain. Ozone. Magic. Mage. The associations strung together and Hawke opened his eyes. Right, mage. He had a dream where he spoke to Anders after he started drinking, which was very weird indeed because Fenris never disobeyed orders before, and Hawke never dreamed.

One look above his head explained why his arms refused to move. They were tied, quite inexpertly, with the sleeves of a silk shirt. It was ruined anyway, but Isabela would have done a better job with the knots. It looked like each sleeve was wrapped around a wrist, the body of the shirt twisted to form a rope, and one loop of a pair of cuffs clasped around the 'rope' to hold it in place. The heavy chain that went with the cuffs was looped and tied around a rail that ran above the headboard. Hooks ran all along the top rails of the bed, and somebody didn't know how to use them.

He was naked under a sheet tucked neatly under his ribs, and his ankles were held apart by something rigid – probably a spreader bar. Hawke pulled his feet towards himself experimentally; nope, they weren't tied down at all. Spreader bar and no chains to hold the bar down.

Hawke debated the validity of the setup. He could get out of the silk shirt within a minute. There was so much slack between his wrists with the 'rope' that he could reach over easily and undo the knots. With his hips and thighs perfectly mobile, the placement of the spreader bar made it more a weapon than a hindrance.

“How's your head?” Anders had a voice like honey. He wondered why he hadn't noticed before; it was the voice of a man who never smoked a day in his life and got drunk on one glass of wine.

His head was … clear. No blurring in his peripheral vision, no pain, or even that thudding redness that lived behind his eyes, “fine.”

Anders waited patiently. When nothing was forthcoming, he tried again, “you're not going to ask why I tied you up?”

Hawke snorted, and he couldn't help but laugh. To think that the mage thought this was tying someone up, he must have had very little experience in keeping prisoners. No, the mage had plenty of experience being a prisoner, not keeping one.

If he hadn't slit Hawke's throat already, then he wasn't going to. Anders had him unconscious and helpless, and all he did was bind him and heal away his migraines, “no. And thank you. For healing my head.”

“You're welcome,” the words tumbled out of his mouth, then Anders ran out of things to say. Hawke looked at him, expectantly, while his eyebrows slowly climbed up into his now dishevelled hair. It was longer than Anders thought it would be, with bangs that went past his eyes, parting naturally to one side, shot with silver.

“Anders,” Hawke sighed, hanging his head a little to hide his smile. “You haven't killed me in my sleep, so I'm going to assume that you won't. And since you won't, I'm going to also assume that you want to play.”

“Play?” Anders repeated, sounding lost. He didn't think this through at all.

“A war game,” Hawke shook his hair out of his eyes, then kicked the covers off. “You tied me up because you want something from me. You don't have to tell me, but it's your job to figure out what it is you want, and how you're going to get it.”

He was expecting Hawke to ask him questions – why Ander was back, how he was alive, but there was one thing he need to know, “why did you want me dead?”

Instead of answering him, Hawke slid himself down the length of the bed, straightening his arms above him, spreading his knees wide to the same space his ankles were apart, about three feet. He was flaccid and uninterested, and he displayed that fact to Anders with a languid yawn.

“You want me to give you answers? Make me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A spreader bar:  
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spreader_bar
> 
> The particular one I'm writing about uses leather cuffs with metal buckles.


	18. Learn the Game, One Rule at a Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anders discovers how far Hawke is willing to go.

Before he woke Hawke by purging the alcohol and curing his headache, Anders had a tour of the mirror room.

The floor was lined with stone tiles, one side of the room held a large silver mirror, and one wall had a handle on it that practically screamed 'pull me.' The room itself was exceptionally clean and had a drain on the floor. Anders shuddered to think that it was also used for purposes other than pleasure.

The closet, and it was a closet even if what it contained weren't clothing, was full of … stuff. He recognized the phallic objects by their seamlessness and the general size, and picked out a metal butt plug, silver toned and polished, only about three inches long. He didn't need it big; he needed something to conduct electricity.

Anders was a healer, and he wasn't sure how he felt about inflicting pain. Everything he knew bout whips and paddles he learned from reading books passed around by apprentices in the Circle, most of which contained more flowery prose than practical instruction, or at the hands of templars, and he couldn't imagine anyone enjoying a flogging. He picked out a flogger anyway, a twin to the one he had inside him the night before, with its leather tassels and rounded knob. Just in case, he picked out something bigger – a long paddle with two rows of holes running along its length.

He thought he had a plan. Now Hawke was staring with him with his knees spread and that challenging look in his eyes, and Anders flailed over how to get started.

He still felt a little hurt and confused - he had tied the man up to question him. He wanted to even the score, or perhaps he simply wanted a little more trust, and Hawke was only giving him one way to get it.  
  
Well, first things first. He was wearing too many layers. Anders slipped his fingers under one pauldron and unhooked the chain, shrugging it off. He slowly untied his coat, looping belts out of rings, the heavily padded garment joining the pauldron on the floor. When he was down to his linen shirt and pants – the wet spot he quickly cleaned out with a bit of spirit magic, so at least he didn't embarrass himself – Hawke was still eyeing him with that smug look, unaffected.

With a small lopsided smile on his face, Anders reached up behind him and pulled the tie out of his half-ponytail. Hawke's eyes widened briefly, and a sharp movement below alerted him that Hawke's cock twitched the moment Anders shook out his hair.

He pulled on the laces on the front of his shirt, loosening them, but changed his mind before pulling it over his head. The fact that Hawke was naked and he wasn't was a turnabout all on its own, and Anders wanted to keep it that way.

Anders trailed one hand over his hair, separating a lock of it and twirling it around one finger. Slowly, he brought the end of it to his mouth, and brushed the ends across his lower lip, trembling from the light shock it brought, half closing his eyes. Hawke had gone from his smug smile to an open-mouthed stare, blood obviously rushing to his nether regions.

Anders loomed over Hawke, his hair coming down in a fringe over the sides of his face, casting his features in shadow. The room was lit by candlelight now, but all the light came from the outside of the bed. He dipped down, low enough for the ends of his hair to trail along Hawke's skin, starting from the top of his right foot, over the top of his knee, Anders letting his chin rasp across the joint when he got there.

Hawke flinched away and threw his head back. Anders blinked, stunned by his sensitivity. He gingerly licked across the skin there with an upwards motion, then allowed his teeth to scrape it on the way down. He kept one eye on Hawke, the angle making it difficult for him to study the man, but Hawke was tense with the effort of not screaming. His hands balled into fists, pulling at his bonds, his toes curled into the mattress, heels dug into the fabric so hard the bar behind his ankles touched the bed.

Feeling confident, Anders placed an open-mouthed kiss on Hawke's other knee, drawing a circle on the rough patch of skin with his tongue. This time Hawke couldn't keep quiet; he let out a grunt, clenching his teeth, a shuddering sigh escaped him, the quick rise and fall of his chest giving away his silent panting. Anders breathed out, letting warm air rush across the moist surface he left behind.

He wondered how many people Hawke had allowed this close before, to explore his body and learn his secret places. Judging by his reaction - none at all.

Anders tallied up the things he knew. Hawke had sensitive knees. He enjoyed the look of Anders' hair around his face and the taste of him with wine. It was like playing Wicked Grace, where the cards were revealed one at a time, and victory depended on how much one side knew.

The answers were there, in the silk knots Hawke didn't break out of, in the way he challenged Anders to explore him, to push his limits and even to go beyond them.

But how far would Hawke be willing to go? “What can I do to make you tell me?”

“Nothing. I'll never talk,” and hidden in those words was permission. There was nowhere Anders couldn't go, there were no limits he could breach. Within these rooms, Hawke thought he had no fears and no weaknesses.

“Are you sure?” Anders leaned over him then, rubbing his groin against Hawke's abdomen, reaching a hand down to cup his balls. He slid it lower along the cleft, fingers dusting over the tight pucker there that had probably never been touched by anyone before, “tell me you're sure.”

Hawke took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, and the muscles under Anders' fingers spasmed once and relaxed, “yes. I'm sure.”

“Where do you keep the salve?” Anders couldn't quite believe what he was hearing. Hawke turned his head, gesturing his chin at the sideboard, and Anders almost hopped to it. A black metal cylinder with a fitted lid sat next to a candelabra.

Anders opened the tin, but it wasn't exactly salve he found inside. It had a wick in the middle. He gave Hawke a questioning look, and received a nod and the barest hint of a smile. Since he was already there next to a lit candle, Anders touched the wick inside the tin to a nearby flame. The wax around it quickly melted into an oily substance that swirled freely within the tin.

He looked at Hawke uncertainly. Hawke did say he could try anything, but Anders wasn't into the giving or the receiving of pain, and didn't understand how anyone could enjoy it. But Hawke was waiting, and the first rule – and the only one Anders knew - of the game was to keep him interested.

Anders held the black tin a few feet above Hawke's broad chest, and allowed the oil to drip, slowly, one drop at a time, down towards his pectorals. It hit his skin with a splatter, and Hawke let out a hiss, but his eyes were closed, and he was still conspicuously aroused. If there was any pain, it made his erection twitch deliciously against his abdomen, and if it was possible, he was getting harder from the wax.

Hawke liked pain. Anders filed that piece of information away for later.

It wasn't too surprising; it took a certain amount of masochism to run into the front line with a sword. Warriors lived on the rush of it, feeling pain as just another boost, the best kind of aphrodisiac. He'd read tales of fighters retreating into tents with their camp followers right after a bloody battle, but he only remembered the more sordid bits, and not so much the fighting-in-battle bits.

A drop landed on a nipple, purely by accident, and Hawke cried out, letting out the first real sound of passion he made in Anders' presence. Anders pulled the candle back immediately, afraid of hurting him, but one quick check assured him that Hawke was still rock-hard and throbbing.

_It's your job to figure out what it is you want, and how you're going to get it._

Anders wanted Hawke to lose control so badly that he would tell him to stop. Perhaps enough to show Anders what he was like inside out, the way he had, facing Hawke in the mirror and allowing him to see Anders at his most vulnerable.

That was what he wanted, and Hawke just showed him how to get it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, this candle exists. It's usually made of hemp seed oil / soy oil / jojoba etc, and it's a solid at room temperature, but has a very low melting point so it's not likely to burn. It's marketed as a massage oil because oil eats latex and one **should not** use it as a lubricant.
> 
> I imagine the Thedas equivalent will probably be made of a mix of flax seed oil and some kind of berry wax. Berry waxes don't burn very hot anyway, and the oil will lower the melting point.
> 
> Yes, I think much too hard for something that's basically PWP. Heh.


	19. Turnabout

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anders gives an anatomy lesson.

Anders tested the oil on his skin. It scalded like too hot water in a bath, but it wasn't all that bad. If this was a blend of oils that was solid at room temperature, and worked well as a lubricating salve, it probably didn't burn hot enough.

He blew it out and reached for the candelabra.

Someone like Hawke wouldn't burn tallow anywhere, “what's this made of?”

“Bayberry,” Hawke looked a little smug, saying that. Of course, even in what was practically prisoner's quarters, he used the most expensive wax there was. It wasn't beeswax, which was all Anders needed to know.

There were three long tapers on the candelabra. Anders removed one, tilting it experimentally and examined the angle at which the wax began to drip. It was too slow. He took aonther one off the stand and replaced the candelabra on the sideboard.

Anders brought the two candles right above Hawke's shaft, lining up the tip of the cadles a foot from the slit. He lowered the candles, slowly, creating a hypnotic show of his visage behind them. It was impossible to look away. Hawke stared at the flames as they came closer to his body, and Anders waited until the whites were visible both above and below the pupils. Fear.

He separated the candles and upturned them just above Hawke's knees. To his credit, Hawke thrashed in his bonds, whipping his head back hard on the mattress, but he didn't try to get away. Candlewax dripped on to the sensitive skin on each joint, flowing outwards, creating a flower-like pattern of warm, soft wax. When Anders thought there was enough collected on them, he placed the candles carefully in the middles.

Anders examined his handywork. The tapers brightened the interior of the four poster bed nicely, and the candlelight lit up the tears collected in the corners of Hawke's eyes. He felt a well of emotion that he thought might have been pity, but it was so out of keeping with the view that he had to examine it again, finally settling on something resembling success.

He wasn't causing pain for the sake of it; he was giving Hawke what he needed to lay himself bare, one layer at a time.

“Hold still,” unlike himself, Anders knew that Hawke would be able to. Placing the butt plug down next to Hawke – well within view, so that he could dread it – he smeared his right hand on that broad, oil-slicked chest, skimming it down his torso and over that delicate patch of skin between pelvis and thigh, down to the small pucker below the sac. Anders touched it with his slicked fingers reverently, while he showed Hawke his other hand, letting a spark fly from his thumb and catching it with his forefinger, creating a continuous low current.

There was a bead of moisture on the tip of his cock, weeping and slowly dribbling down one side. Anders brought the spark to it, allowing the current to jump when it was brought about an inch away, and used the distration caused by the spark to slip two fingers in up to the knuckle. Hawke let out a low whine, keening deep in his throat.

Anders crooked his fingers, searching. When he found what he was looking for, he sent a shot of electricity through it. He had done this in the past, with pulses, a tiny little zap that the body grounded right away, creating a pleasant sensation like being massaged from the inside out. In this case, he shot the current in a stream and caught it with his left hand he held to the top of the crown, then sent it back the other way. He surmised that it was probably incredibly painful up top and pleasurable at the bottom.

Most men would have just come, but not Hawke. By some incredible force of will, he held on, biting his lip so hard it bled. His cock twitched under Anders' hand in the motion of an orgasm, and he probably felt a continuous throbbing that mimicked the feeling of one. Anders was impressed – the constant, soft glow of the candlelight remained still.

Hawke's tears were freely flowing now, and that was involuntary, his body reacting to the overstimulation. Anders reached out his hand, so recently involved in electricity torture, and held it to Hawke's lip, healing the cut. He added, “you can come. There's no point holding it in like that.”

Hawke just shook his head, voice only a little unsteady, “unlike some people, I can control myself.”

He didn't think Anders had it in him to even get this far. Hawke could feel those fingers inside of him, moving in and out with gentle, rocking motions. That was Anders – even while playing the role of the aggresor he was so damnably nice about it.

“You think an orgasm is voluntary, do you?” Anders gave him the look of someone who knew better, his free hand untying the laces to his pants, freeing himself. His cock was built like the rest of him, long and lean and a little crooked, bending to one side, “I can give you an anatomy lesson, if you'd like.”

Hawke felt the slight burn and stretch as another finger was added to the two. He could see Anders stroking himself, his eyes closing and his entire expression given over to pleasure. Hawke liked – loved – that face. His own life was one unending card game, a series of masks. It was nice not having to guess what went on behind someone's face for once.

Anders' hand moved up and down his own shaft, his thumb brushed over the top on each stroke, and Hawke watched his mouth, the way he gasped and moaned over every little touch. There appeared a crease between Anders' eyebrows, the way he did just before he came, and Hawke was struck with how well he could read those little signs on Anders already, so intent was he when they coupled in front of the mirror. Anders pushed himself down, lining it up with Hawke's hole, and when he cried out his pleasure, his seed spurted into the space between his fingers where he held Hawke open.

The fingers were withdrawn. Quickly, almost brutally, the plug was pushed in, sealing the white fluid inside of him. Anders panted above him, taking his hand off his own cock and wrapping it around Hawke's length. Hawke wasn't used to being on the receiving end of sex, and he certainly wasn't used to being filled; the twin sensations of something hard and uncompromising holding him open and those soft, long fingers stroking him making it difficult for him to hold his legs still. He was relieved when Anders took his hand off to pull the candles off his knees.

“A salty fluid will conduct electricity while oil does not. Basic elemental magic – you can cast a grease spell right in front of you and then throw lightning around, but if you did that with ice magic first, you'll fry yourself,” Anders said, in the voice he used to speak to apprentices back in the tower. He threw a spark of static towards the end of the metal plug, and it travelled through the metal and into the semen – Anders', Hawke's mind supplied – that ran inside him, deeper than any phallus could reach.

His eyes clamped shut at the lightning storm in his loins, quite literally, and his hips left the bed for a brief second. Hawke screamed as something scalding hot hit his nipples, Anders hovering the candles over him while his eyes were closed. As the wax remained hot on his skin while more of it gathered on his chest, his keening tapered down to a whimper, interspersed with a hiss each time Anders found bare skin to torment with hot wax.

“I can tell you one thing,” Anders said, looking with wonderment on Hawke's eyes, bright and fevered and shining with tears. He blew out the candles, setting them to the side, “an orgasm is not voluntary. They're like hiccups. And it has absolutely nothing to do with,” he licked up the side of Hawke's length, tasting his own seed on soft skin, “this.”

Anders tucked one hand under Hawke's arse, keeping a finger to the spine. His touched a hand to the base of the plug again, readying it to catch the spark. People never expected this part, because the placement of one hand was just too far up, but what they didn't know just added to the surprise. He probed, with magic, finding the nerve he needed to hit, and sent a spark through it, catching the energy with his other hand to make sure it ran through Hawke's lower half and not just ground out.

There was no fighting it. Hawke came with a hoarse shout, lifting his hips off the bed, splattering over his chest. His entire body shook; his eyes rolled up to the back of his head, his arms went slack in his bonds, able to feel nothing but an internal, continuous convulsion as the forced orgasm rolled through him. Anders followed his movements, sending a low current precisely where it was needed and channeling it out the plug.

The room was quiet but for Hawke, the sharp, ragged sound of his breathing in between the cries and the keening screams, helpless to stop them, his control wrenched away. Anders only stopped when the sounds became the whines and whimpers he associated with someone weeping. He crawled up Hawke's chest, hands slipping on the mixture of oil and wax and cum, until he was near enough to see those eyes up close. Anders stroked a hand down Hawke's cheek, smearing his finger on Hawke's bottom lip that trembled lightly irregardless of his touch.

He studied that beautiful countenance, those sharp Ferelden features, the strong jaw spattered with cum, mouth agape and eyes half-closed, hair matting to his forehead with sweat. Justice screamed at him, back in the recesses of his mind, that what he had done was unforgiveable and unjust, and Anders simply assured the spirit that he would never, ever understand. Hawke liked it.

They both liked it, even though Anders knew that he should have been horrified at how much he enjoyed reducing Hawke to his current state. Anders was a person who made pain go away, a hearler first and foremost. This side of him, the one whose eyes widened and whose mouth turned up to a smile as he heard those screams, wasn't what he showed to most people. Even Hawke must have been surprised at how far Anders was willing to go.

He captured those quivering lips in his own, slipping his tongue into the slack, opened, inviting mouth. His assurances to the spirit was confirmed when Hawke kissed him back, tilting his head to allow for deeper invasion, letting Anders swallow the remainder of his cries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bayberry wax does exist, and it burns at a relatively low temperature compared to other natural waxes such as beeswax.
> 
> The Vagus nerve is a major nerve bundle that runs from your brain stem all the way down to the abdomen. If you stimulate it, you get an orgasm, no genitals required.
> 
> In fact, as long as the spinal column is oxygenated, even a corpse can have an orgasm. If you want to take that idea and write something about Justce/Kristoph...well, I'm not stopping you.
> 
> Also, you cannot have an orgasm and the hiccups at the same time, because they're both connected to the Vagus nerve. So...sex is a cure for intractable hiccups. Yup.
> 
> However, there had been no controlled studies of orgasm in men by stimulating the Vagus nerve. So, I'm extrapolating.


	20. Mind Games

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anders learns that submission must be earned and freely given; otherwise it will not last.

Anders thought he had won. The man was conquered. He had Hawke under him, spent and soiled, crying, his will to fight seemingly gone. Then sudden pain shot through him and Anders drew back, bewildered.

Hawke turned his head to one side and spat. He'd bitten Anders on the tongue hard enough to cut him, then he'd spat out the blood, as if Anders was _repulsive_.

Apparently he hadn't been harsh enough then, if Hawke could still taunt him. He raised one hand and healed the cut, while Hawke gave him one of his creepy, hyena smiles.

“Andraste's pyre! What's it going to take?” Anders said, climbing off the bed. He was so close. He thought he almost saw what was behind those eyes, something dismal and cold and so familiar that it sent shivers down Anders' spine. But whatever it was, he was so close to it he could taste it as near as the blood on his tongue.

“I'm not you. I don't give in,” Hawke said, not meeting his eyes.

No, thought Anders. Hawke simply needed more, and he was blatantly asking for it. Some people asked, some people begged, and a man like Hawke taunted. Someone like Hawke could never ask for what he needed. There was too much pride on the line.

His clothes were too soiled for comfort now, the moisture in it cooling his skin and sticking here and there. Anders kicked off his pants and pulled the shirt over his head. He picked up the flogger and thought about turning Hawke over, but he wanted a position where he could see Hawke's face for as long as possible.

He bagan peeling off the wax covering Hawke, the big patches on his knees, then the smattering of it on his chest, pushing his fingers under the wax and running his hands on the skin underneath. Anders followed his hand with his tongue, flicking first at one nipple, then another, smiling as Hawke lifted himself up to meet him, more receptive than he was before Anders forced him to let go.

Anders straddled's Hawke's hips as he hefted the flogger in one hand. The dong part was a bit larger than himself, weighted for swinging, while the leather tassels were smooth and soft. It wasn't made to injure, the tassels too broad to do more than redden skin. He trailed the tassels over Hawke with gentle, teasing motions, hoping to start this off with some suspense.

Hawke stared at him with one lifted eyebrow under his limp hair. That decided it; there was to be no preliminaries.

The first strike landed across Hawke's broad chest, leather snapping on skin loud enough to echo off the stone walls. Anders gave no warning, and when Hawke gasped under him, his strategic position over Hawke allowed him to grasp their members between their bodies. Each sting brought an unconscious lift of his hips, Hawke grinding himself up against Anders. He had to hit harder every time; Hawke's tolerance for pain seemed to go up by the minute, as was his hunger for it.

On the occasional swing when Anders aimed the flogger to hit a nipple, Hawke howled, twisting not to avoid the pain but to be closer to it. His entire chest was turning pink. When Anders leaned over and licked over where the leather travelled, Hawke shuddered beneath him, his burning skin more sensitive now than before the touch of leather.

Satisfied with the state of that part of Hawke for now, Anders turned around, planting his knees to either side of Hawke's hips. If Hawke was looking, he would have been giving the man quite a show. Anders draped his body over one muscular thigh and raked down the length of Hawke's calf from knee to ankle with his fingernails. A low groan behind him spoke of torment; the flesh between Hawke's legs said otherwise.

Anders climbed off the bed and stood by the foot of it. As much as he enjoyed the warmth of Hawke's body against his own, standing farther away gave him a better angle to get at those knees, and to watch the effect each lash of the flogger had on his resolve. His knees were just as sensitive to pain as they were to gentle caresses, and it wasn't long before Anders reduced Hawke to guttural cries, as Anders scraped his canines over the heat the flogging left behind.

Once Hawke's entire torso was a shade of pink as deep as a blush on a maiden, Anders commanded, “turn over.”

Hawke quirked an eyebrow at him, still glaring – he still had the will to glare - but he turned over obediently, flipping the bar holding his legs apart until it sat on top of his ankles, a perfect mimicry of Anders' position the day before, except right now there was no handhold to keep his top half level. Hawke sank down on his elbows, arching his back perfectly, holding his chest off the mattress.

Anders understood the appeal now – the chains, the bar, legs held apart to present a view that needed no imagination. His mouth went dry at the sight; there were dimples on Hawke's lower back and his butt cheeks. He had legs like tree trunks. The base of the plug was visible and gleamed in the candlelight. Hawke was all prepared and his to take.

Strangely enough, Anders felt no compulsion to do so. Right now, he had a goal, and fucking Hawke wouldn't have brought him any closer to it. He picked up the paddle with its twin rows of holes, and didn't bother calling out a warning as he swung it.

It landed loudly and much too quickly, Hawke letting out a yelp of pain as it connected with his arse. Anders realized then the holes on the paddle allowed air to pass right through them, so his swing landed much harder than intended. He nestled himself next to Hawke, and proceeded to drape the man over his lap – it was awkward, with Hawke so much bigger than he was, but Anders did his best to approximate a simile of turning the man over the knee.

Anders touched his fingertip to the base of Hawke's tail bone, and dragged it upwards on the spine. When he reached a point where he applied the electricity earlier, Hawke tensed up, fully expected to be forced to come again.

That was when he knew; Anders had him. He managed to instill fear and anticipation in Hawke.

Thinking back to his capture, Anders recognized the patterns. To show him that he did not simply threaten, Hawke left him in the dark, strung up until Anders' voice was hoarse from screaming. He quickly followed that treatment with tender ministrations, though the threat was always there – Hawke knew what Anders was afraid of, and could very well leave him in the dark again, but he chose not to. In turn, Anders became grateful for everything, seeing all actions other than that which he dreaded as desirable.

It was insidious and effective in hindsight, but knowing the method did not mean that Anders was free from its spell. There was only one way out.

Anders drew circles over the spot on Hawke's spine, trailing his fingers down with gentle touches instead, and he laid a kiss on a shoulderblade. _I'm not going to do that_ , and he kissed him again, along the spine, _not again_. Hawke visibly relaxed.

Then he laughed. It wasn't like anything Anders had heard from him before, the sniggling laughter he liked to throw in that was more mockery than mirth, or the amused short huffs of breaths that Hawke passed off as a laugh. Hawke shook with it, shoulders shaking under Anders' hands.

It took a while for him to calm down, their extended period of intense stimulation causing his moods to be on just this side of volatile, “I'm impressed. You've even picked up on the mind games.”

“I'm not sure if this isn't one,” Anders replied, sounding a little unsure.

“Smart man,” Hawke turned to look at Anders. It could have been his imagination, but Hawke looked a little sad, “if you know the reason you're back is because I messed with your head, why aren't you leaving?”

_Because the world revolves around you, and I've been drawn in._

_I want to see you lose control for me._ Truly, otherwise, “I don't know.”

“Want to find out?” Hawke looked away again, draping himself comfortably over Anders. Always comfortable in his skin, smirking.

Anders wanted to wipe that look off his face. He raised the paddle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pain is often described as an aphrodisiac in ancient texts on sex, such as the Kama Sutra, and it's theorized to work better on men, because men who wants sex when they're faced with fear or death is more likely to reproduce, whereas the same trait on women wouldn't be advantageous at all - if you're dead tomorrow and gets pregnant today, well.
> 
> The brain also releases dopamine when you're in pain, which has the effect of both numbing the pain and getting you high, and some people experience a state of emotional vulnerability and volatility.


	21. Deep Seated Fears

The pain caused by a flogging or a paddling wasn't much different from a fist fight, except that in this case arousal turned the pain to pleasure while in the other, adrenaline turned it into a rush. Either way, Hawke didn't feel much of the pain. It all became – more, like nails scratching down his back or a love bite, evidence of minor violence only faintly remembered afterwards. Right now it ony added to his want. Anders could run out of stamina swinging that paddle and Hawke would hardly feel any of it. The real pain came later, when the high wore off and the scratches and cuts rubbed up against the sheets.

After a few minutes of hearing only grunts out of Hawke, Anders changed tactics. He alternated his swings with little sparks sent to the metal plug lodged in his arse. There was no way to expect what was coming, thudding pain that blended into the cloud-high haze Hawke's mind was already in, or a shocking, jolting pleasure shot right through him and sent him pressing down on to Ander's thighs, curling over him like some child being disciplined.

Hawke didn't want to become attached to the presence beneath him and over him, but Anders running those long, slim fingers through his hair was a constant reminder. His restraints, the silk and the chain, was an anchor, the spreader bar and the cuffs on his ankles, physical support. He would reel if they were taken from him now, much as the way Anders felt adrift the moment his harness was taken off.

It was hard to put his feelings into words; everything was clearer, his vision was sharp and even the simple shadows thrown on to the walls looked alive and beautiful. He could feel the tingle in his scalp from Anders touching his hair, but it was amplified, and it made him want to purr like a cat. The occasional shot of electricity kept him chained, but otherwise, his mind was practically floating away in a haze of exhilaration.

The physical things, like the sounds he made or the way his arse moved to meet the paddle and the shameless way he grinded himself against Anders' thighs, were secondary. His mind was in control and distant; the rest of him was not, and therefore, not important.

Someone was pushing on his shoulder, asking him – no, commanding him – to turn over, with a calm voice and soft fingers. So he did, rolling onto his back, arms stretching out above his head.

Hawke was covered in reddened skin, product of too many turns with the flogger, the back of his thighs red from the paddle. He should have been in pain, wincing at the touch of linen sheets against his backside, or when Anders ran a hand down his chest, feeling the slight patchwork of welts blending into burning skin under the pads of his fingertips. But he looked calm; serene, even, his legs relaxed and parted. His arms held no tension. If his restraints weren't holding him up, they would have rested on the bed.

And those eyes; they were too bright. There was a smile there too, crazed and euphoric, and if Anders didn't know better, he'd have thought Hawke had been chewing herbs instead of receiving a continuous beating.

“What are you thinking about?” Anders asked.

“Nothing,” said Hawke, looking like he meant it.

Anders stroked Hawke's chin, and wiped away the tears beneath his eyes, “what are you really afraid of, Hawke?”

The scent of summer lightning, the day Bethany ran back from the woods alone, babbling about templars. Father was dead and they had to pack up everything and leave.

The Blight. Their world crumbling around him, the decision to preserve it out of his hands.

Knight Captain Cullen on his doorstep, apologising as he took Bethany away. Carver leaving home, joining the templars to keep his twin safe.

He built a life in Kirkwall like a sandcastle by the sea shore, and everyday the ocean threatened to swallow it all. On the day that sea finally breached his dam, taking everything that it thought was precious to him, it would find out that nothing ever was.

And perhaps he would learn that he had lied to himself all along, and he had friends and family that he would rather not see wiped away, and if any of them was used as collateral the way he used Sister Petrice, he would have talked.

Anders, a templar standing over him with the brand, and Hawke in the same position Varnell was thrown in, unable to do a thing to stop the inevitable.

Beneath it all, he expected these last horrible events to come to pass, same as those that already had passed. Because when it does, it would have been poetic justice. Nothing he didn't deserve.

“Nothing,” Hawke said, voice cracking on the second syllable, “nothing at all.”

“It doesn't look like nothing from here,” soft gentle fingers at his cheek, wiping away fresh tears; a voice like honey by his ear.

“Why are you doing this to me?” He was away from all this, for so long as the physical pain lasted. This man kept insisting on bringing Hawke back to land, while he wanted to just keep floating.

Part of Anders wished to shout and ask Hawke why he did what he did to Anders, the other way around, but he already knew the answer.

_I want to help._ Anders wanted to help fight darkspawn, which was how he ended up a Warden; he wanted to help Justice and other mages, and he ended up possessed. He wanted to help mages escape the gallows, which was how he met Hawke in the first place. And now -

_I want your freedom, the way you made me gave up mine._ “I want you. All of you,” The words ended up sounding selfish even in his own ears, but somehow they were easier to say than the truth, and probably easier to understand for both of them.

“I can't -” Hawke wasn't sure what he meant, other than he couldn't give Anders what he was asking for, whatever it was.

“You asked me to make you, remember?” Anders whispered, leaning his cheek into Hawke's bicep, running a hand through black and silver hair. Soft hands, with callouses from holding a staff but hardly any scars, healer's hands. A gentle, honeyed voice from a man who was willing to cause pain if it was meant to cure, “so I'll make you,” _mine_.

Anders kissed him again, chastely, a mere brush of the lips and a shared breath. With his alcohol evaporated away and his last cigarette hours ago, Hawke was just Hawke, musk and masculinity, blanketed by the smell of sex, like freshly cut grass in spring complimented by the sweet scent of bayberries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the [wikipedia link to subspace.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subspace_%28BDSM%29)
> 
> TL:DR - The flight or flight response from the brain releases a morphine-like drug during an intense SM scene, causing the sub to loses his/her sense of pain completely, and produces out-of-body, euphoric experiences. Any stimulus will prolong this psychological state.
> 
> And yes, the easiest way to get there is a spanking. Or, surprisingly, marathon running, since it's the same reaction the body has on a runner's high.


	22. Submission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hawke finally gives in.

He collected a few pillows from the mound strewn at the top fo the bed and piled a few under Hawke's shoulder blades and a few more surrounding his head, mostly to prevent him from looking away, and to make sure he was as comfortable as possible. Then he tucked a couple of them under Hawke's bottom, elevating him. The cuffs on the spreader bar were unbuckled, then moved up and rebuckled at knee level.

Anders Pulled the spreader bar upwards, and Hawke helped by lifting his knees and sliding farther up the bed. He clapped the one spare cuff, its attached twin still clasped over the silk shirt, on to the bar. Hawke immediately grasped it with his hands on his own, both pulling his knees closer to his chest and taking the weight of his arms off his wrists.

Running his hands up and down those thighs so muscular they could probably pull the entire bed frame down if he truly wished to, Anders took a deep breath, “will you trust me?”

The game was still on, and Anders just presented an out.

“Yes,” Hawke said, his eyes unfocused and looking right past the mage.

His head was still in the clouds. Anders needed to bring him back down, “I'll be right back, all right? I'm just going to go get something to clean you up.”

Hawke stared straight ahead of him as if he hadn't heard, his mind beginning to drift. Anders came back from the bathroom holding a stack of moist towels only to see Hawke shivering, metal of the cuffs rattling against the bar. Without constant stimulation, he was beginning to drop – like the exhaustion that set in after a long battle.

Anders ws still learning this as he went along, and he just learned something else; leaving Hawke alone in this condition was a bad idea. He slid in next to Hawke in bed as best he could, feeling the cold sweat on his skin, and nuzzled at his neck, making nonsensical shushing noises. Hawke turned to look at him, eyes refocusing and looking so fragile that Anders felt his chest tighten.

“Let me take care of you,” Anders said, warm brown eyes and hot breath by the joint of his shoulder. The shivering stopped.

He moved to sit between Hawke's legs, and slowly eased the plug out of him. It was probably a bad idea to use more electricity, since Hawke had associated it with forceful loss of control. This time, he had to have consent, and when that transfer of will came, when Hawke loses control, it had to be a choice he made on his own.

Anders picked up the oil candle from the floor where it waited, and lit it. Hawke stared at him, as if resigned to what he was about to do, expecting to be used and taken, perhaps. From what Anders learned about Hawke so far, from just watching him and being made love to – there was no other word for it, Hawke was much too gentle and considerate of his pleasure for what they had done to be called anything else - by the man, he knew that Hawke was probably never in this position.

That also brought with it another implication; no one ever did this for him, this meticulous, slow seduction of the flesh. Hawke never had a lover who lavished attention on him the way Anders was doing now.

With a moist towel draped over his fingers, Anders began wiping down Hawke's lower body, not wanting to cool him down than what was necessary, leaving his chest and shoulders. When he got to the pucker between his cheeks, Anders followed the trail travelled by the towel with his tongue, drawing a circle over it with the tip then delving in quickly a few times, looking for a reaction.

Even if they were levels upon levels underground, he was sure that whoever remained still on the main floor at this hour – was it late afternoon? Evening? - would have heard that cry. Anders moved up, his lithe, lean body fitting through the space under the spreader and Hawke, intentionally dragging his torso across Hawke's erection as he slid up to speak to him, “I'm guessing no one's ever done that for you before.”

Hawke almost looked bashful, shaking his head. He was always expected to top, and with a cock as thick as Anders' wrist, it wasn't surprising at all.

“Do you want me to keep going?” And the answer to that, too, was preditable. Hawke turned his head away, not meeting Anders' eyes. Where Anders asked and begged for what he wanted, Hawke gave, and perhaps he hoped for reciprocation. Anders smiled and kissed his jaw. Hawke was rather cute, with his tough macho persona stripped away.

Anders moved down again, giving Hawke's member a lick just to see him twitch before he moved back to where he was, draping over the edge of the bed with his tongue flicking out at Hawke, just barely touching the edge of his hole.

He was still open, a little stretched out by the plug so Anders could get at the walls of his channel. Each touch brought a new quivering in those legs, and a quick glance up confirmed that Hawke's knuckles were turning white on the spreader bar. From farther up the bed he thought he heard his name called, but until it was coherent, Anders was going to choose to ignore it. He added his hands to the texture of touch he was offering; long fingers wrapping around that thick cock, the palm of one hand rubbing against the reddened skin of his arse.

Anders picked up the oil candle and poured it on his hand, wincing a little at the heat. He began to slowly push his fingers into Hawke, starting with three, about the width of the plug. He sat up on his heels to better look at Hakwe; his eyes were closed, while his mouth was open, taking in shallow breaths quietly, occasionally clenching his teeth whenever Anders grazed the tips of his fingers over his hot spot. Hawke was obviously trying to stay silent.

“And you thought I was stubborn? Unbelievable.” Anders leaned on Hawke's left knee, keeping his eyes on those pale blue eyes, while he kept his hand in motion. Grinning, he added a fourth finger, tucking it against the other three. The muscles clamped down, but Anders was already far enough inside to crook his fingers and tease, so he did with circular motions and the pads of his fingers, watching Hawke squirm above him.

Anders waited for the tight channel to admit him again, those inner muscles that the body had control over but Hawke had none, loosening around his digits. Then he began to pump them into Hawke with quick, repeated motions, angling them upwards to hit that spot every single time. Hawke tried tossing his head back, trying to avoid the view of Anders' moving arm and that smug smile, but the pillows propping him up prevented any escape.

He wasn't used to this, the internal pressure that built up from the inside out. Hawke was a little mortified that instead of trying get away from Anders' hand, he was pulling the bar up higher and lifting himself like an offering, angling just so for Anders to fuck him with those long, elegant fingers. Anders leaned over and took Hawke's length into his mouth, barely just sucking on the tip but with those fingers still pumping in and out of him, the barest of stimulation on his sensitive organ felt like too much.

He couldn't stop his voice, though he thought he could die of shame, “Anders!”

Anders pulled his mouth away quickly but he was still breathing on it, speaking and vibrating the words into him, “tell me you want my cock inside of you.”

Hawke gave him a look as though Anders was absolutely insane; if Anders was incapable of restraint, then Hawke was incapable of wanton, open admission of his desires. And then the mage had the gall to laugh at him, sending little huffs of breath over the top of his erection as Anders kissed the tip of it.

“If it's not my cock you want, I'm going to assume you want something else,” and that smile was just wicked, pouty lips slightly swollen from sucking on his cock, glossy with Hawke's precum, lopsided and perfect under a waterfall of red gold hair. As he watched, Anders swiped his tongue over his bottom lip, drawing in the salty fluid and closing his eyes in apparent pleasure.

He might have been the one tied up and put on display, but Anders was still putting on the show. The hand inside him stilled, but Hawke's attention was on those eyes, those lips. He couldn't look away.

Anders pulled out his fingers, leaving Hawke instinctively grasping at the emptiness. Anders picked up the oil candle and showed it to him, “last chance.”

For once, Hawke neither understood nor knew what was expected of him, like standing alone in the fade with its myriad pathways, none of which he truly wished to take. He managed to mumble a, “what?” before Anders showed him the hand that was just inside of him, wriggling his fingers, and -

\- poured the oil all over it, in a slow and steady stream, turning it from front to back as he allowed it to coat the back of his hand, rubbing his fingers in his palm to ensure every digit was slick from the tip to the webbing. Hawke's eyes went wide, and he couldn't say no because the ability to speak fled him. If he looked hard enough he might have seen that though part of him was terrified, his breathing betrayed him with stuttered, anticipative panting.

“Breathe. Give me long, deep breaths,” said Anders, and that hand descended on him and into him, until he thought he could take no more. Slow, burning kisses up the inside of his thighs, demanding his attention, and those kisses had an authoritative voice, “open up. Relax. Breathe.”

He remembered, distantly, watching Anders fall apart for him. Hawke wondered what he looked like now, as he listened to the pounding of blood in his ears. The tightness over his body was heavy and tangible, dragging him down as he sank into the mattress, where he was sure he would keep sinking until he descended into the Void.

There was wetness on his face again, streaming tears that tickled his chin as they traveled down his inflamed cheeks, unable to look away from Anders, who was holding him captive and giving him pleasure - he did not know which was worse. If he was simply taken, and it was a cock inside of him, then it was an equal exchange, just sex. Anders giving him that faint smile and his eyes full of concern and promise, Anders with his gentle touches and the sting of a whip, Anders' stubble rasping across his knee and soft brush of his lips on his skin, they were gifts, unasked for.

It hurt.

It hurt so much he couldn't breathe.

It hurt in all the places that Anders was not touching, tight and hot from the center of his chest, radiating outwards to his limbs. It hurt where Anders was touching him, a different kind of pain, a slow burning as his muscles spasmed around the fingers still pushing inside of him. His tears flowed slow as the clear wine that he licked off the salt of Anders' skin.

And it was the wrong kind of pain, that ground him to the present and the now, that forced him to land and face the warmth and emotion in Anders' eyes that he never bothered to guard. Open and beautiful eyes, understanding and caring eyes, an undercurrent of something heated that twisted the knife in his heart. It hurt.

Then the burning pain was gone, replaced by a feeling of fullness that was bordering on pain but not quite, and it made everything else hurt all the more.

Hawke was reduced to whimpers again, the chocked out sounds that came from him completely scattered, full of half-spoken words interspersed with his call to the Maker and Anders. He had no defenses left.

Anders knew now what was so familiar in those eyes. It could be summed up as simply as 'haunted,' but was there ever a word as full of hidden meanings as that? He had that look once, when he stared into a mirror for the first time in a year, haunted by the voices he heard in the dark, haunted by the stalactite of loneliness built up over a year of drip-dropped conversations with nothing but the walls. Except Hawke's was much worse, like a man who thirsted for water in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by people that he could not relate to nor share any part of himself.

But the fear was the same fear, that dread of the future, of what was to come. The dread of the coming tide, that brought with it silent and merciless fate.

Anders slid his free hand up Hawke's chest, placing it in the space above his heart. It was tight, so tight, the organ drumming away too fast for a body so sizable. Anders realized that, yes, his heart was the same too, as big as the ocean. Hawke took on everything on his own, each act of cruelty taken in the name of necessity weighing him down like another chain added to the yoke, pulling him in all directions and none at all, stretched to his limits, his will barely holding him together.

“Let me in,” Anders said, with his one hand nudging at Hawke's opening up to his knuckles and another above his heart. Hawke was tense all over, one last act of defiance, one last barrier of wariness. He breathed a sigh over Hawke's navel, trailing kisses up as far as he could reach, “please.”

“I can't,” that word again, and it truly felt like he couldn't, as though what Anders was attempting to do and what he was asking of Hawke was too much. He wanted it so badly, wanted that future with something other than the turning of Kirkwall's gears, and him in the middle of all that machinary, its chains binding him to its teeth, tearing him to pieces.

“Hawke, what do you want right now?” It was never going to be easy, not between them, not with this man, but he wanted Hawke to at least try, “there is no future in this room. If here and now is all there is, what do you want now?”

“...You,” Hawke got out between a breath and a prayer, his heart falling into the abyss. The decision came easily when the complications of past wrongs and future calamities were taken out of the equation, “I want you.”

“Yes,” Anders let out the breath he was holding, his vision of Hawke blurring from hearing those words from his lips making him blink rapidly.

The muscles that were clenching and forcing his fingers out relaxed suddenly, and Hawke's breathing slowed down, moving into a soft rhythm that rose and fell to the urging of Anders' soothing voice, asking him to take long, deep breaths.

Then his knuckles finally moved past that ring of muscle, Hawke letting out a little yelp of surprise, as Anders tucked his fingers in and turned his hand first to one side, then another, running his second knuckles right across that sweet spot.

“Maker,” Hawke was shaking like a leaf, his fingers refused to hold on to the bar and his wrists hung loose in his silk shirt. “Anders, I need -”

He was asking. He wasn't sure what he was asking, however. He needed Anders closer. He needed to touch him, but he was bound and those choices were not his, so Hawke bit his lip again, not knowing what to do with these new impulses for contact.

He was so easy to read now, with a look of pure want in his eyes and those arms fighting with the knots, that Anders raised the hand he had over Hawke's chest and pulled them free. They were simple knots, easy, looped knots that came loose with two simple pulls.

When Hawke look back to the events of this day, he would remember that he made all these choices on his own.

Anders pulled the shirt free of Hawke's wrists and the cuffs and threw it behind him. The buckles on his knees went next, Anders not bothering with the metal cuffs at all, just pulled the bar away from his knees and allowed the chain to take it. It landed, swinging somewhere up the bed, banging against the headboard.

“You don't need them anymore,” Anders kissed Hawke's right knee as it came down to rest on his left shoulder, taking its weight. He guided one of Hawke's hands to hold on to his other knee, pushing it back towards his chest, “I've got you.”

Hawke scrabbled on the mattress with his free hand, grabbing on to the sheet and digging his fingers into it, but Anders reached out for it, bringing it up under Hawke's knee, then covered it with his own, soft long fingers on top of the scars and callouses. It was a moment both diametric and complete, as though the trek of their lives ran in opposite directions only to meet on the other side, and those minutes and hours and years in between served to bring them to this second.

Or that other consummate moment, when their eyes met for the first time, and perhaps even by then this moment became inescapable, and this wave of feeling that pained and burned and overwhelmed was the tide Hawke was waiting for.

He was frozen in time and could do nothing but watch Anders, with his crooked smile and eyes that shimmered, his mouth moving and saying something that Hawke didn't catch, and finally he heard, “are you ready?”

Hawke wanted to ask, 'for what?' but Anders' hand began to _move_ and that solid, warm full feeling inside became a raging inferno, burning away any questions he had of possibilities and the extent of how far a human could feel and still be a part of the mortal realm. First there was the grazing of Anders' knuckles, just the softest of nudging with the small back and forth turning of his wrist that made Hawke writhe on the bed.

Anders, speaking encouraging words that were so much softer than the sound of his own cries.

“I can't,” those words once more, and this time they were spoken because he couldn't hold on. He was going to come, he felt as though he was already there, from the tingle in his scalp and the shaking in his calves. It was that moment of vulnerability in the seconds of orgasm, stretched out but not thinned out, timeless in its perfection.

Then Anders decided that he had enough of being gentle. His motion became that of pistoning in and out and Hawke wasn't even sure what words came out of his mouth, but they made Anders smile softly into the inside of his knee, hand still holding on to his, providing an anchor in a sea of intense feeling that threatened to wipe the very self of Hawke away.

Anders was mouthing the words 'trust me' but they were beyond that already, beyond the word trust, as they opened and melded and connected with each other, “Hawke.”

The hand slowed enough that he could at least get words out, yet it was only a whisper beyond the plaintive whimpers, “yes.”

“Tell me you're mine,” and it didn't come out like a demand, though it wasn't a question, either. _Tell me. Tell me the sky is blue and the sea is green. Tell me you're mine._ That Hawke had allowed him this was enough, but Anders wanted to hear the words from his mouth, that he possessed him body and soul.

“I'm,” it was harder to fight through the tears lodged in his voice than it was to say them, a damning admittance, one that did not allow backtracking or escape, only an invitation farther down the rabbit hole. “I'm yours.”

Anders' smile then was bright as the sun. When he managed to speak again, his words were mumbled and his voice husky, “come for me.”

His channel tightend around the fist inside him, feeling every knuckle and callus and above all, that it was Anders who wished something of him, Anders drawing out his heart by the strings. By now he had his ankles wrapped around Anders' lower back, his hands behind his knees clutching on to whatever ground he could still hold on to. Hawke came, and his voice that accompanied it was barely recognizable as his own, and not because it was hoarse or rough from smoke and alcohol.

It called out Anders' name, and it was full of a depth of emotion as he had never spoken before. He came in a cycle, pulse after pulse driven out with the pumping motion of Anders' hand, the feeling of being full and clenching around him only brought more spasms out of him, until there was nothing left and he was overcame with the urge to roll up and cry into the mess of pillows by his hair.

There was shuffling below him, and the rough touch of a warm towel on his skin. Anders' chest behind him, an arm flung over his torso, Anders' nose digging into the space between his shoulder blades, soft kisses at the nape of his neck that brought to mind butterflies' wings. Anders was wrapped all around him, his erect cock resting behind Hawke in between his thighs.

“...me,” Hawke mumbled, face in his pillow. True to his thoughts, it was wet with tears, which explained why Anders was spooning him as though he was about to fly to pieces.

“Hmm?” Anders rolled him on to his back, and draped himself over Hawke.

He was exhausted, but he wanted this one last thing. Hawke wrapped his arms around the blond man, over the whipcord lean muscles of his back, bringing his head down so he could whisper the next words, “I want you to come inside of me.”

Anders' eyes widened in surprise, and he was about to ask if Hawke was sure, but the man's cheeks were turning beet red so he took pity on him and captured his lips in a languid kiss. He began to move back, and Hawke chased his lips, propping himself up on his elbows.

The angle was all wrong, but Anders did his best to fit his shoulders under Hawke's knees, while Hawke curved his back into a bow to accommodate his need to kiss Anders, pushing himself up on his hands behind him.

It was far from perfect, with Hawke so exhausted as to be on the edge of consciousness, keeping himself awake by force of will, but the feeling of Anders' body tight against him, crying out his passion into Hawke's lips as he came was beyond the physical, beyond the feeling of skin on skin.

Anders drew back long enough for Hawke to see him, since by now he knew Hawke loved to see his face as he came. Hawke pulled him in with his ankles locked behind Anders, feeling the wavering rhythm of his climax, and his chest was so tight again he couldn't breathe. Hawke pushed his lips against Anders', then, and let him breathe for both of them.

They fell asleep with Anders on top of Hawke's chest, eyelashes fluttering by his collarbone. He had forgotten that he needed to smoke to drive away the demons, but they kept away anyhow, with Anders by his side, guarding his dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I see anal fisting as sort of an pansexual act - also the ultimate intimate exchange of trust between two people, whatever gender or sexual orientation they are.
> 
> Anyway, I loved writing this chapter. :) Next up is have an epilogue.


	23. The Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've come to think of Sara Bareilles' [The Light](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2mKdIhU_QQ) as this pair's theme song.
> 
> Let the world come rushing  
> Come down hard, come crushing  
> All I need is right here beside me  
> And all the love I'm swearing  
> Take my love and wear it over your shoulders  
> \- The Light, Sara Bareilles

“Their eyes met across the hall, Red Hawk with his piercing eyes and hulking figure impossible to ignore. Blondie flashed a smile, and even in the dim light of the Hanged Man, over an atmosphere of gritty crime -”

“Day-old vomit and stale piss,” Fenris interjected.

“That, my friend,” Varric's hand just kept scribbling, and not about bodily fluids of the wrong kind. He sighed, “is not how you write a romance.”

“If you're just going to make it up anyway, why not have them meet somewhere other than the Hanged Man?”

“Because I make my living here. I'm making the Hanged Man into a famous landmark,” Varric got up from his oversized chair and began rummaging in one of his ornate chests. He held up a sheet of old-fashioned parchment illuminated with gold ink and showed it to Fenris, “look at this: a present from our Hawke.”

Fenris didn't look up, “what is it?”

“The deed to the Hanged Man,” Varric grinned.

“How...generous,” Fenris didn't look surprised. “And what are you giving him?”

Varric placed a hand over his heart, “my undying gratitude.”

“Free use of the hidden entrance from the sewers, storage in your wine cellars two floors down, and any rumours you pick up from your runners,” Fenris listed off. “Not to mention keeping your mouth shut about all the apostates he smuggles through here.”

“He doesn't hide anything from you, does he?”

“And neither should you,” Fenris peered over his drink and smirked.

“Point taken,” Varric sat down, picking up the quill again, “how is the boss?”

Fenris sipped at his drink with a satisfied smile, “happy.”

*

Dockside warehouses were built for shady deals. Hawke came to that conclusion a long time ago, perhaps two months after he arrived in Kirkwall. There were always not enough cargo and too much space in these places, built with second floor balcony style hallways that made it perfect for an ambush.

Hawke waited by the door of warehouse number seven, where Athenril kept her not-so-legitimate office and the cargo moved of their own freewill. He was on his second cigarette, his connection to the Fade completely hidden and sealed. Ser Alrik used to be a regular for his magebane, but tonight he wasn't paying in gold or information.

“Serah Hawke.”

Even his voice was creepy. Alrik had the entire package: the bald head, the overabundance of facial hair, cold rhemic blue eyes, and a twisted way of speaking that made him sound obviously deranged. Older templars were always a little off, and Alrik had been on his 'payroll' until a month ago, when he decided to go straight and stop feeding information to Athenril.

Alas, leaving the family wasn't quite so easy. Hawke already had enough evidence to put Alrik away the old fashioned way, through the city guard. This was supposed to be a last hand-off. A mage of Hawke's choice for some incriminating, handwritten documents.

The mage in question was standing next to Alrik now, a pair of runic cuffs around his – or her, impossible to tell with the all-emcompassing black cloak – wrists. Even with the black fabric covering, Hawke could tell that the person underneatah it was shaking.

Hawke led them to the wide, open space of the warehouse interior. Their business had a certain protocol, and he was following it to the letter, throwing off the scent, “I'll just get your things from the office for you. Wait here.”

He closed the office door behind him, and pulled out a cigarette, “is everything in place?”

Athenril sat behind her rough wooden desk. She tossed Hawke a flint wrapped in charcloth, “we hardly needed an ambush to catch a lone templar.”

“We can never be too careful. He could have brought friends.”

“Not many templars want to work with Alrik. He's nuts,” Athenril gestured at the door, “you ready?”

Hawke nodded. They opened the door; Alrik was already on the ground, hogtied. Their men worked fast.

“You will never get away -” Alrik was spewing the usual things that templars always said when they were amubushed in seedy warehouses. Hawke wondered if there was a rulebook for this: things to say when captured. Probably not.

“I've been getting away with it for years, Alrik.”

Realization dawned, and the horror that came into Alrik's eyes was immediate. The air was suddenly thick with the smell of urine.

“Took you this long to figure it out, huh,” Hawke put out his cigarette on Alrik's forehead, ignoring his screams, “I've been hearing some very disturbing rumours about you. You've also made the grave mistake of making a move on my sister.”

“I barely touched her! The bitch -”

“Is watched over by her twin every minute of everyday. Oh look,” Hawke poured a vial of acid over the burn, and Alrik wailed, “that is totally going to scar. How about that? Your very own brand. I heard you love those things.”

“I hate to interrupt, but I think you're scaring the men,” Athenril said. She pointed at the person in the black cloak, “and this mage here is shaking like a leaf.”

“I guess I can have my fun later,” Hawke smiled, and it was so much more terrifying than just his neutral expression, “don't worry. You'll live a good long while yet.”

They had done this so many times that there was a routine to follow. Templars had no denfenses against rogues – one bolt with soldiers' bane was all it took, then it was just a matter of tying them up and putting them into crates full of straw and a night time run through the cellars. The men they enlisted for these little trapping missions all lost family members to the templars at one point or another, and they practically volunteered for the job.

Hawke took a deep breath and pulled the cowl back on the black cloak the mage was wearing, and breathed out when he saw that there was no brand on his forehead.

“Thank the Maker,” then a quizzical look came onto Hawke's face, as if he was going to say something else, but he changed his mind at the last minute.

“I don't want to sound ungrateful or anything, but what's going on?” The mage had graying hair and a Ferelden accent. Hawke thought he would have been more ... well, more attractive. _Maybe Anders likes facial hair. Maybe I should grow a beard._

Hawke was never one to explain things properly, so he shoved a piece of paper into the mage's hands instead. It was a very short list; mages scheduled for their harrowings, mages to be excecuted, and Karl found his name in the 'scheduled for tranquility' list.

“You're welcome,” Hawke said, when he realized that the mage was so in shock that he was speechless. “I thought it was already too late, but Alrik pulled through for me. A little blackmail never hurt anyone.”

“I ... I don't know what to say. Thank you.”

“I have a boat ready to take you and five other mages to Ferelden. It's going to be a little cramped, since it's a cargo boat, but the city guard's already gone through it so it's all legit. It will dock in Amaranthine. The magi collective will pick you up from there.”

They worked out some more details, from the hand signals that the collective used, to the backup plans, in case something happened to their liaison in Amaranthine.

“How can I ever repay you?” Karl asked. The dockhands were closing up the rest of the crates, and they only had a few minutes left before the boat had to leave. He hadn't even learned this man's name aside from what he heard in his cloak.

“When you write your next letter to Anders,” Hawke laughed, seeing how the name startled the mage, “tell him about me.”

*

“Why did you think this was a good idea, anyway?” Carver yelled from the other end of their present battlefield, great sword cutting down a raider as he spun, “camping on the Wound Coast. Damn it brother! At least there are trees on Sundermount!”

An ice spell cast directly in front of him froze three more, while an assassin with twin blades was pulled a mere foot away from behind him and dashed against a boulder. Carver swung his sword once, smashing the frozen raiders into pink blood tinged ice shards.

“There are less undead here!” Hawke yelled back, picking up a dozen masked men rushing toward their campsite on the peninsula with a hand gesture, then throwing them back down on the ground with great force. He let out a great big roar and ran at the scattered raiders, sword raised. Those who were able to get up, fled.

“Will you two stop it?” Bethany cast a wide swath of flame, burning up the remains. It was the only way to make sure one did not wake in the night to walking dead. “This is supposed to be fun!”

“Oh, it's fun,” Carver spat out, “so far we've came across raiders, Tal-Vashoth, giant spiders, and a bunch of men herding mabari.”

“It's great fun because I missed fighting with the two of you,” Hawke didn't look like he was mad about Carver's outburst. On the contrary, he was grinning like an idiot.

Carver just stood there with his mouth open; Bethany ran up and gave her big brother a huge hug, ignoring the blood covering them both. Hawke planted his sword in the sand, then raised his arm in a gesture to Carver.

His younger brother reluctantly stepped up into the hug. He wasn't one for such open displays of affection, but he hadn't seen a smile like that on Markus for years.

It wasn't exactly the rolling hills of Highever or the 'haunted' caves near Lothering, but they sat around their roaring fire and a pot of Ferelden stew and it almost felt like home. Hawke doled out the stew and regarded his siblings; back in the estate were all the things he had that he didn't want, while out here, with nothing but the sky above them, he had everything.

“I think I'm coming around on this camping idea,” Carver said over his mostly empty third bowl of stew. “But your cooking is as inedible as ever, brother.”

“Want more?” Asked Hawke, offering a ladle.

“If you donl't mind.”

“Mother is going to be livid,” said Bethany. She looked towards her older brother, “she had all these plans for this weekend. All these lovely ladies for you to meet.”

Hawke shuddered, high town parties with their snotty manners and perfumed hair was not for him, “I'm not getting married. Carver can have the heirs.”

“Do I get a say in this?”

“No. You're the only non-mage,” Hawke stretched out on his bedroll. “The Chantry can take my children away if I do have them. You can marry and have the Hawke heirs.”

“Mother says that it's your duty as - “ Carver began, but Hawke cut him off.

“I've done my duty. She wanted to go to Kirkwall, we're in Kirkwall. She wanted the estate, I got her the bloody estate. She may have given birth to me, but this is my life – she can't fucking have it. Sorry, Bethany,” he apologised, the way older brothers did when they swore in the presence of their younger sisters.

The twins looked across the camp fire at each other, and in the silent way that twins did, decided which of them was to reply. Bethany said, “you've changed, brother.”

Hawke rolled to face her, “for the better, I hope?”

“You're still an arse,” Carver answered.

“And you're still a tit,” Hawke said. Then they grinned at each other. Just like old times.

In the gray colourless light of predawn, Hawke got up before his siblings and walked up the hill to a cliff that overlooked their campsite, high enough above the ocean that the horizon was fully visible to the east. He sat down right on the edge of it and let his legs dangle over the side, and unwrapped his pack of hard cheese and rye bread for breakfast.

It was still a little cold, but he had learned to enjoy the cold while it lasted. When the sun beat down on him at noon, heating his armour like a wearable hot pot, the little coolness he felt in the morinng would become a fading memory.

“Do you always sit with your back to the road?”

“Only when I'm expecting a certain blond apostate,” Hawke patted at the patch of dirt beside him. “Come on.”

Anders sat down, but kept glancing back behind him, “why do you want to meet here before dawn anyway?”

“Look over there,” Hawke placed a hand under Anders' chin and practically forced him to look at the horizon, “and stop being so paranoid. We cleared out this place last night.”

Right on cue, the rising sun began painting the underside of the clouds to cloth of gold, while pink and purple hues crept over the lightening ocean. As they sat and watched the sunrise, Hawke placed his large hand over Anders', and tucked Anders' head under his chin, “worth getting up early for, isn't it?”

Anders kept looking to the east, as Hawke wrapped himself around his lover protectively. If he hadn't known it before, Anders had since learned that beneath that gruff exterior hid a very considerate, gentle man, and Hawke showed that side of himself to very few people.

“You've been keeping secrets from me,” said Anders, turning in Hawke's embrace to look at him.

“Oh?”

“I got a letter from Karl. Apparently he isn't in the gallows anymore.”

“That's good news,” Hawke tried to say that casually, but there was a knowing smile in the corner of his mouth.

Anders elbowed him in the ribs, “he called you psychotic and beautiful in the same sentence. Did you flirt with him?”

“What? No! I just told him to tell you about me,” Hawke rubbed at his chest. Maybe if he fed Anders more he'd stop being so pointy. “I should've been more specific.”

“Why didn't you tell me that you work for the collective?”

“Because Justice requires proof. Any more questions?” Hawke shrugged.

“Where's Ser Alrik?”

“I let him go – he's back in the gallows,” _after a fashion._ He smiled a little at that. The years of experiments finally paid off. Seeing Anders' shocked expression, he added, “and he's not nearly as crazy as he used to be.”

“What do you mean?” Anders' curiosity was piqued. He knew that there was a reason Hawke was kidnapping templars, but he hadn't figured it out yet.

“He's off the lyirum and still lucid,” Hawke sounded proud. “When you told me about Justce and his abilities when he inhabited a corpse, I figured out something – lyrium and magic is interchangeable, so if you replace the lyrium a templar needs with a connection to a fade spirit -”

Something cilcked for Anders. “- they stop needing the lyrium.”

“Ser Alrik is the first templar with a spirit of compassion living in his head,” Hawke smiled, and wasn't it so ironic, that the one templar that finally survived his experiments had the most to atone for.

Anders looked at him with such awe in his eyes; Hawke didn't want to tell him the reason that he began researching the effects of lyrium dependency was entirely selfish. He just wanted a way for Carver to leave the order whenever he wanted, that was all. Though Anders probably knew by now the lengths Hawke would go for his family.

“Do you know what happens when a templar is denied lyrium?” Anders shook his head, and Hawke continued, “it depends on how ingrained the addiction is, but it takes about a week or so for him to lose his mind completely. He won't remember who he is. If you give him lyrium again, he'll live, but the memories are gone forever. If you keep denying him the lyrium, he'll die.”

“That's...” and Anders had to let Justice stew on that for a while, and when he spoke again he used the spirit's words, “confusing. The Chantry must know of this.”

“They do,” and there was so much more he wanted to tell Anders of what his cousin, the Hero of Ferelden, had told him of templars in their correspondence, but he had already given Justice enough to think about for one day. “I told Carver last night that I can send them both back to Ferelden, but they want to stay.”

Carver was adamant about making his own decisions and how he could watch over Bethany well enough on his own, but Hawke translated that to 'we're family we stick together.' At least he was still as easy to read as ever.

The sky was now the pale blue of Hawke's eyes, the bright oranges of sunrise dissipating with the fog. Anders looked up at Hawke, their legs dangling over the edge of the cilff, “I never pegged you as a sunrise sort of person.”

Hawke wasn't. He had taken plenty of night watches as a mercenary, and sunrise signalled the end of his shift, or the beginning of one. It was one single, minute part of the day, and it wasn't more or less special than any other. If anything, he used to hate the symbolism of the start of yet another day.

Waking up next to Anders made things different. A sunrise was a promise that he had one more day with Anders.

He wished he was one of those people who communicated easily and spoke in prose, but he could only manage simple, unadorned words, “I like sunrises with you.”

*

“Oh how sweet,” down below them on the peninsula, Bethany and Carver had began preparing a hot breakfast. Since the couple was sitting on the edge of a cliff, they were perfectly visble from the camp site.

“Maker's breath. I did not need to see that first thing in the morning,” replied Carver.

“I'm just glad he's happy. Aren't you?” Bethany was just so chipper and the look she gave Carver brooked no argument.

“I guess,” Carver grumbled, and Bethany had a laugh over how similar her brothers really were. There was no way to say what he was going to say next and not sound like a closed minded bigot, but he was talking to Bethany, who never judged him for all the callus things that came out of his mouth before, “it's just that...I was not expecting...a man, when he said he met someone special. There was that one girl he stole from me in Highever, remember?”

Bethany's smile faltered, but for their older brother, she would keep some secrets even from her twin. She steered the subject away, “I don't think it works like that for either of them.”

She looked over to the cliffs again, and Anders was standing, extending a hand to Markus. She watched them as they began their trek back down the hill, hand in hand, towards their camp site.

There were so many words, and none at all, for what they had together. Between them was a pull of attraction so tangible one could see it if one looked hard enough. They had a love – that neither of them had openly admitted to yet, even after a year of living together – that transcended time and distance and social barriers; gender was such a small step by comparison.

She wanted to tell Carver all this, but he didn't have the kind of mindset that could understand all the things she came up with when she saw the couple. Finally, she settled on simple words that conveyed nowhere near what she had in mind.

“He doesn't have a preference, brother. If he is to be with anyone, then it just has to be Anders.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I started this story, I had a very vague ending in mind, and it was ambiguous and neither happy nor tragic. By the time I hit the turnabout point in the story, this ending became inevitable.
> 
> Sometimes stories just take over and write themselves, and this one definitely pulled me along for the ride. It sure was fun though.
> 
> Thanks for reading.


End file.
